Entries by Tyranis (7)
Five Ugly PUGs















When good PUGs go bad.
Up until recently, my participation in pick-up group (PUG) raids has been non-existent. However, I recently changed my death knight's spec to Blood to take advantage of the vast amounts of armor penetration (ArP) found on the gear in Ulduar. I was an Unholy death knight previously and cared little for ArP, but as Blood some of the items I passed up when we did Naxxramas and Malygos are suddenly huge upgrades.
My guild exclusively raids heroic Ulduar at this point, so if I want to get my hands on items like Grim Toll or Melancholy Sabatons, I need to join PUGs. So over the past few weeks I've joined probably around a half dozen PUGs. While none of the PUGs I joined were disastrous, they certainly left much to be desired. I would like to take this opportunity to highlight the top five people to /boggle at that I met through my recent pugging endeavors.
#5 The Undergeared Complainer
During one of my heroic Naxxramas PUGs, one of the women in the raid kept keying into vent to talk about all of the loot upgrades she needed. Every time we downed a boss, she would be very vocal about what item she wanted and would swear over vent when she lost the rolls.
After losing her second roll she spoke over vent and complained that she couldn't believe people were rolling on these items when they already had purples equipped. That's when I inspected her. She was mostly in greens and a few blues. Her gear was so bad that the 24 other people in the raid were literally carrying her through the instance. She still had the gall to complain about other people rolling on gear. I believe I watched her lose every item she rolled on that night. Karmarific!
#4 The Worst Ninja
You knew there had to be a ninja story in here somewhere right? Well this one still has me baffled. A priest in our Naxxramas pug rolled need on an epic trash drop. It was bind on pick-up and it was a leather item, which of course a priest cannot equip. We asked him if he rolled need on accident and without a reply, he dropped offline and logged out of vent. He never returned.
So this was either an accident or he is the world's worst ninja. If he meant to do it, what did he gain? He can't equip it and he can't give it to another player. At best he was an enchanter and could get a shard out of the gear. Otherwise, he can sell it to a vendor? What a score that was!
More than likely, it was an honest mistake, which is fine. He should have, however, admitted it and then he could have put in a ticket to have the item transferred to someone who could use it.
#3 The Backseat Raid Leader
This is the guy who isn't leading the raid, but wants to be. It started off innocently enough. He was a hunter and used vent to coordinate misdirects with the other hunters. Fine. Slowly he started telling people where to stand and how his guild usually does this boss. The raid leader didn't stop him and by the end of the raid he was talking almost non-stop on vent, giving people advice about bosses we've all been killing for over half of a year. The part that really got on my nerves was he used the term "skaters" and "skating" when I believe most of the MMO population calls it "kiters" and "kiting".
#2 The DPS Diva
I was in a PUG in the Vault and we were about to face Emalon. Right before the pull, one of the warlocks interrupts the raid leader on vent and states that he needs someone assigned to help him mitigate his threat. He then goes on to explain that his DPS and threat are so high that even after he soul shatters he needs a paladin to cast salvation on him. He asks the raid leader which paladin will be assigned to him. Everyone was in shock. I couldn't believe someone would make 24 other people wait for this self-serving ego stroking session. So I sat up straight, moved my drink and snacks away from my playing area and put all of my focus on the encounter. I beat the diva in damage done and DPS for the fight. "IN THE FACE! IN THE FACE!"
#1 The Lying Leader
So as I mentioned earlier, one of the items I'm trying to procure in these PUGs is the Grim Toll trinket, which drops off of four different bosses in heroic Naxxramas. That's the only item I need in the entire instance and the sole reason for me to raid there. I joined a PUG with one of my guildmates and away we went.
The loot rules were laid out to us in advance and they seemed very standard. Then my heart skipped a beat as the raid leader said something about wanting the Grim Toll. I got nervous and before getting saved to the instance I sent him a whisper. I asked him if the Grim Toll was reserved for someone or would we all be allowed to roll on it equally. He replied that everyone who could use it would be allowed to roll. Satisfied I zoned in and we began killing bosses.
We got to Maexxna and sure enough, she dropped the Grim Toll. The raid leader asked everyone to roll and after losing says over vent that he's wanted that trinket for a long time and was going to take it for himself. Now I had lost the roll to someone else anyway, so that softened the blow a bit, but he downright lied to me. I was really angry.
I told some of my guild members what had just happened and they all told me I should drop the raid. The issue was, I was already saved to his instance now and the trinket did have a chance of dropping off three other bosses. So it was either drop and have no chance at the trinket or stay and pray. So I stayed.
Well a few bosses later, the raid leader cheated my guildmate out of a piece of loot that she had won fair and square. He altered the loot rules that he posted in chat at the beginning of the raid. Shortly after, I left the raid.
I shouldn't be shocked. I know that kind of stuff happens all of the time. I guess I'm just used to raiding in the safety of a mature guild where everyone is happy when anyone in the guild receives a piece of loot. I can't stand liars and cheaters and that raid leader was both. Well in any case, I'm still searching for my Grim Toll and Melancholy Sabatons.
Do you have any horror stories to share from your PUGs? Have you met any strange or amusing players that you would like to add to my list?
Raiding in 3.2: Decisions Decisions












Patches mean different things to different players. For some, it is looking forward to more adventure and exciting things to do. Others might be anticipating changes to their class or getting their hands on a new vanity pet. As GM of a raiding guild, I find it necessary to scrutinize patch notes in search of changes that may impact the way my guild operates.
For example, in patch 3.1, they introduced dual specialization. This had an immediate impact in our raids. If we're facing a boss that only requires one tank, then we'll have the other tanks swap to their DPS specs. If we're short a healer, one of our DPS can swap over. Having raid members with well-geared secondary specs became important. In order to encourage our raid members to have well geared offsets, we changed our loot policies to offer gear for offsets at a discount DKP price, assuming no one needed the item for their main spec. Another smaller change in 3.1 was the duration change on flasks from two hours to one. As a result, we now make sure everyone is using their flasks in unison so we can time our breaks for when the flasks run out.
As I peruse the patch notes for patch 3.2, there are a few line items that could impact the logistics of raiding. It will be interesting to see how guild officers respond to these changes. One of the first decisions guilds need to make is how will the new raid instance, Crusader's Coliseum, fit into their raiding schedule. While the new dungeon is technically a new tier of raiding, guilds may not remove Ulduar off their schedules immediately, like they did to Naxxramas when 3.1 hit. While the details aren't solid at the moment, it has been posted that the encounters in the Coliseum will be unlocked one at a time at the rate of one per week. Many guilds will still spend a lot of time in Ulduar while the bosses are slowly introduced in the Coliseum.
Once all of the tier 9 encounters are open, there are more scheduling decisions to make. The Crusader's Coliseum (aka The Argent Coliseum) has both a normal and heroic version for both 10 and 25 players. The heroic versions of the instance limit players to a number of attempts each week, but open up greater rewards for those who succeed. With that in mind, do you try and take out Ulduar quickly and then spend the remaining time working on the normal version of the new instance? Or do you skip the gobs of easy loot from Ulduar in favor of the new content? How do you balance time spent in normal vs. heroic Coliseum? Interesting questions, indeed.
Perhaps the biggest raiding change to be introduced in 3.2 is the extend raid lockout feature. When 3.2 hits, guilds will be able to decide if they want to prevent a raid instance from resetting on a weekly basis. Raid lockouts can be extended for up to an additional week to allow players more time to work on and clear boss encounters. With instances as big as Ulduar, many guilds begin to struggle towards the end of the instance because they run out of time to work on bosses like General Vezax and Yogg-Saron. How will your guild use this exciting feature?
Players in 3.2 will have the ability to trade soulbound items with other raid members that are eligible for the loot. This feature grants you a two-hour grace period before the item is permanently bound and will save Blizzard GMs from throngs of in-game tickets from items that are distributed incorrectly. Guilds may decide, however, to use this feature as a time saver during raids. Instead of spending precious flask time distributing loot after each boss kill, the master looter can grab everything and hand it out at specified break periods. Obviously, this is more beneficial when you're clearing a lot of bosses in a night and can get complicated if you frequently have raid members leaving and joining throughout the night, but it is still a nice option to explore.
The Call of the Crusade patch will change the way a lot of guild approach raiding. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out. Which raiding features are you most excited about in 3.2? How is your guild going to approach some of these changes? Share your thoughts and ideas with us.
Death Knight Changes in Patch 3.2














In the upcoming patch, death knights will be the only class to receive a talent point refund because, once again, they are getting an overhaul. Some of these changes are nerfs, some are buffs and others are redesigns of how the spells and abilities function. The death knight community is already analyzing all of the data and surmising why these changes have occurred. Let's explore some of these changes, but keep in mind that all of this is subject to change before this patch goes live.
Blood Strike: The bonus damage this ability receives from diseases on the target has been increased to 50% per disease.This change is creating quite a stir in the death knight community. That's a huge buff to that ability and some folks are speculating that it's a typo and they meant to say "increased by 50% per disease", which would mean it increases from 12.5% to 18.75% per disease and not 50%. If the change does remain as written, then blood strike could replace heart strike in the blood rotation and some of the scourge strikes in the unholy rotation. The blue post found here seems to indicate that it's not a typo, however, it's already been reduced on their latest internal build, which would make it different than the patch notes.
Chains of Ice: Now reduces movement by 95% instead of 100%. The main effect of this change will be that targets of Chains of Ice will not have to re-issue a movement command to continue moving.This is a change for pvp and will probably come as a relief to many hardcore pvpers. However, I don't see DKs making much of a stink over it. Chains of ice is still amazing and has the same basic function.
Frost Presence: 10% bonus health reduced to 6% bonus stamina. Icebound Fortitude: Cooldown increased to 2 minutes. Toughness: This talent now grants 2/4/6/8/10% armor instead of 3/6/9/12/15%, placing it in line with similar abilities of other classes. Veteran of the Third War: Stamina bonus reduced to 1/2/3%.Ouch! The death knight tanks take another heavy blow with the nerf bat. In patch 3.1.3 frost presence armor bonus was reduced by 20%. Now we see a 4% nerf to the stamina bonus and the doubling of the cooldown on the death knight's main survival ability. In addition, the armor and stamina talents in the blood and frost trees are also taking a hit. It seems that they are trying to make death knight tanks more like the other tanks. The original design felt like death knights would have more frequent cooldowns to push to offset the fact that they do not have a shield and cannot block. These changes, however, make them feel more like the other tanks and icebound fortitude is now more in line with other tank talents like last stand. If I'm being objective, I think the icebound fortitude change can solve some issues. Recently, my guild took down General Vezax using a paladin main tank. It was a little obnoxious knowing that we could survive the surges of darkness easier if our main tank was a death knight solely because icebound fortitude had a one-minute cooldown. Much of the screaming from the DK tank community seems to revolve around the fact that paladin tanks are getting a decent amount of buffing, including this hard to believe change:
Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Currently, any damage taken by the paladin while at 35% health or below is reduced. Instead, any attack that would reduce the paladin to 35% health or below has its damage reduced. In addition, once every 2 minutes an attack that would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead set the paladin's health to 10/20/30% of maximum.If I'm reading that correctly, that's a passive guardian spirit every two minutes? I'm sure glad my guild often runs with two protection paladins!
Frost Strike: This ability can now be dodged, parried, or blocked. Weapon damage bonus reduced to 55%, down from 60%.Frost strike hits hard and it was probably viewed as too much burst in pvp especially considering it couldn't be mitigated. The slight reduction of damage is probably going to be a wash considering that blood strike is getting buffed. The blue post here, seems to indicate that the frost dps is being spread out a bit more and not consolidated on just one ability.
Dancing Rune Weapon: This ability now has a fixed duration of 12 seconds (which can still be modified by its glyph) and a fixed cost of 60 runic power. Summon Gargoyle: The gargoyle now flies lower to the ground, making it susceptible to melee attacks. This ability now has a fixed duration of 30 seconds and a fixed cost of 60 runic power.These are the 51 point talents for blood and unholy specs. The jury seems mixed on these changes. While I'm not sure if it's an overall buff or nerf to the damage of these spells, what I do know is these spells will be a lot easier to use now that they have a fixed runic power cost and duration. Currently, the timing of when you use these abilities can drastically affect the amount of extra dps they give you. Pop them at the wrong time and you have just wasted a precious cooldown. So I'm eager to see these changes in action.
Threat of Thassarian: New 3-point talent. When dual-wielding, your Death Strikes, Obliterates, Plague Strikes, Blood Strikes and Frost Strikes have a 30/60/100% chance to also deal damage with your off-hand weapon. Off-hand strikes are roughly one half the effect of the original strike.Dual-wielding used to be one of the top approaches to take for a dps death knight. Recently, however, many of the changes have all but killed it. So in patch 3.2, the dual wielding death knights might make a comeback with this new talent in the frost tree.
Desecration: This talent has been reduced to 2 points for 25/50% snare and no longer increases damage done by the death knight. It has also been moved one tier earlier in the tree and its spell effect has been made more transparent. Desolation: New talent. This talent is in the position formerly occupied by Desecration. It causes Blood Strikes to increase all damage the death knight deals by 1/2/3/4/5% for 12 seconds.Interesting. So the current desecration is being split into two separate talents. Desecration is now mostly a pvp ability. The good news is, the infamous desecration graphic will now be much less prominent in pve, which will make most raid leaders happy. However, the speculation is desolation may not be worth taking because the 12 second duration may mean that it is not active at all times with the current rotations. We'll have to see if this new talent gets modified at all before it releases.
Blood of the North: Reduced to a 3-point talent. Increases Blood Strike and Frost Strike damage by 5/10/15%. There is now a 33/66/100% chance whenever you hit with Blood Strike or Pestilence that the Blood Rune will become a Death Rune when it activates. Lichborne: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 2 minutes.There isn't much to comment on here. The talent points saved on blood of the north are probably meant to make room for the new dual-wielding talent in frost. The lichborne change makes it more dynamic since you can use it more often, but need to be more exact on the timing.
Scourge Strike: Weapon damage bonus reduced to 40%, down from 45%. Damage increased by 10% per disease on the target, down from 11%. Unholy Blight: This talent has been redesigned. It no longer deals damage to nearby targets. Instead, when you deal damage with Death Coil, the target will take periodic damage for 10 seconds equal to 30% of the damage done by Death Coil. This damage accumulates in the same way as Ignite and Deep Wounds.Last but not least, some big changes to the unholy tree. Scourge Strike is the bread and butter for the unholy DK. The nerf in damage seems partly pvp related. Since scourge strike deals shadow damage, it is not reduced by armor and can be a wrecking ball. Blizzard doesn't seem to like large amounts of burst coming from a single ability. The reduction in damage on scourge strike is offset by the buff to blood strike, which should see more use. This may also be a push for unholy DKs to get more benefit out of armor penetration. Items with armor penetration are rife in Ulduar and currently it's not a stat that does too much for unholy DKs who spend most of their time scourge striking shadow damage. The unholy blight redesign is one of the biggest changes for death knights in this patch. Unholy blight is the signature spell of the unholy tree and the main reason that this spec is normally associated with AOE damage. Well that all changes in 3.2. Unholy blight no longer deals AOE damage at all, in fact, it is not even a spell, it is a passive ability that adds a bleed effect to your death coils. This change really alters the flavor of the unholy death knight and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Don't get me wrong, this change may turn out to be powerful, but I thought it was interesting how each of the three dps specs for death knights felt unique. Blood was the heavy hitting single target crusher, frost seems to be evolving once again as the dual-wielding spec and unholy was the master of AOE damage. Well I guess we'll have to wait and see how unholy feels after the changes go live. In summary, death knights are looking at some tanking nerfs and a reduction to burst and AOE damage in 3.2. On the other hand, some abilities will be easier to use, dual-wielding should be viable again and raid members should no longer die by standing in fires that are obscured by spell effects. What do you think of the death knight changes coming in 3.2? Is there anything you're particularly excited or angry about?
Warcraft's Real Legendary Items








Deconstructing Mimiron









- When the melee and tank run away from the boss to avoid shock blast, don't run too far. There are three stripes on the ground with circles in them, which divide the room. If the boss is positioned in the center of the room, you only need to run to the second circle on the ground. If the tank is running too far, the boss will get out of position and possibly lay a set of proximity mines too close to the casters and healers.
- The plasma blasts deal an insane amount of damage. Even with a proper cooldown rotation established, all of the healers need to be focused on keeping the tank alive. Every healer that is assigned to use cooldowns on the tank, such as pain suppression, guardian spirit or hand of sacrifice should have another healer near them in case they get hit with a napalm shell at an inopportune moment.
- Your raid members should know their jobs and what to do, however, having someone diligently calling out things over ventrilo can help your raid stay alive. Giving your group a few second warning on shock blast and plasma blast, can make a difference when you're learning the fight.
- We tried having the melee constantly rotating around the boss to avoid rapid bursts, but it didn't work well for us. So we assigned everyone a specific place to stand. The room has three stripes on the floor, which divide the rest of the room into wedges. The positioning we ended up with was dividing the ranged and healers into three groups and assigning each a wedge to stand in. The melee was also divided into three groups and each group was assigned a stripe to stand on. The rapid bursts would then have six distinct targets to choose from and each time the damage would only be hitting 3-4 raid members at a time.
- Have someone watch the back of the VX-001 and call out when they see the rockets launching, so the ranged classes can avoid them. They do five million damage to those that get hit! Fortunately, as of patch 3.1.3, the rockets don't seem to target the melee anymore. Someone should also call out when they see the boss casting spinning up, which will lead to laser barrage. Everyone needs to run around clockwise to avoid getting hit by this.
- Everyone should group up on one side and be as close to the outer walls as possible. The ranged DPS tank for the Aerial Command Unit needs to make sure it is positioned well away from the raid, but it also cannot be directly in the center of the room. We found that the magnetic cores had trouble rooting the ACU when he was positioned in the center. If the ACU gets too close to the raid, it will drop bomb bots directly on top of them.
- The bomb bots can be dealt with by having one death knight using the following macro:
/target bomb bot /cast chains of ice
- When a bomb bot spawns, call for ranged DPS to kill it and the death knight can keep it place by hitting the macro. If a bomb ever gets to close to the raid, the death knight can Death Grip it away from them.
- The raids in our guild usually have a lot of melee DPS in them. We found that saving two magnetic cores and using them in immediate succession allowed for more DPS on the ACU and less running back and forth. You have to be cautious with this strategy, however. After you loot a magnetic core, it only lasts in your inventory for one minute. So I recommend leaving the cores on the assault bots' corpses until you are ready to root the ACU.
- Phase 4 can be a chaotic mess and all three parts of the gnomish Voltron need to be killed within 10 seconds of each other, otherwise they respawn. We had everyone go back to their assigned positions from phase 2. We asked all of our ranged DPS to focus on the ACU (head) and the melee DPS to focus on the Leviathan MKII (feet). We had them DPS those parts down to around 12% health and then focus on the VX-001 (middle). Once all three sections were around 12% health, we had folks assigned to DPS all three pieces and we coordinated their death over vent.
- The shock blast in phase 4 can be interrupted by the Laser Barrage spin. The shock blast graphic will flicker for a moment and then stop while the laser barrage spin is cast. Be careful! If this happens, as soon as the laser barrage is over, the shock blast will cast and blow up anyone in melee range. If you see this, call it out on vent and have your melee and tanks stay away until after the shock blast goes off.
Kindercraft: Warcraft Adventures with Toddlers









Like many others, I've been playing WoW since the original beta. My first son, Richie, was barely six months old at the time. A year and some change later, I joined my first, and only, raiding guild. When my second son, Logan, was born, I was slaying Ragnaros. When my kids got older, WoW became a spectator sport for them. Much of my time in the Outlands was spent with one or more children on my lap. I had been promoted to GM of the guild and became their main raid leader. In fact, I fondly recall setting up the assignments for Void Reaver with my son beside me. I keyed into vent to say something to the raid and at that exact moment my son blurted out, "When are you going to fight the wobot?" Hilarity ensued and to this day some guild members still refer to that boss as "The Wobot."
So now we're in Northrend and my children are ages 5 and 3. They are no longer content to merely sit on my lap and watch me play. I used to be able to pad my coffers with gold by doing dailies while also entertaining my children. Those days are over. Now they want to participate. They want to click stuff. They want to loot, click on herbs and mines and even fight the bad guys.
Both kids are surprisingly effective at playing my toons. Logan can manipulate the interface, find my pets and mounts and click on his favorites. Richie is so advanced that if he could read quests, he could pretty much play solo. After seeing what my eldest could do, the light bulb went off. At least it seemed like a light bulb, but in retrospect it was just the Bad Idea Bears doing what they do best. So I can't farm and do dailies with my kids watching anymore, but my kids are decent at the game by themselves.
It started off innocently enough: "Hey Richie, you need to knock down 30 ogres to beat this quest." I would run and make lunch for the kids and come back and the quest was complete! Brilliant! What I forgot to factor in is how quickly small children can grow bored and how creative they are at finding ways to entertain themselves. The end result was the birth of...The Tales of Kindercraft.
All-You-Can-Eat Seafood Buffet
I was leveling up my fishing in Azshara. I was gathering darkclaw lobster so I could improve my cooking skills at the same time. I had over five stacks of the crustaceans in my backpack when Richie bounded over and asked if he could help. I took the bait. (/pun) I was all pleased with myself. I was doing chores around the house while my son leveled my fishing and cooking for me. I felt like the modern age Tom Sawyer getting others to whitewash my fence. I came back fifteen minutes later to see how he was progressing. My fishing skill had only been leveled a point or two so I asked my son what he was doing. His reply was, "Eating yummy lobster." Over one hundred lobster vanished in fifteen minutes. Did I learn my lesson? Nope.
The Fruit, the Milk And the Pachyderm
Got Milk? Yes plenty.
There have been three occasions where my son has stumbled upon a vacant desk chair with one of my characters already logged into WoW. The first time this happened, I returned to see my son sitting there with an impish grin on his face. I immediately opened my bags and discovered every single bag slot was filled with various fruits from Applebough, the Dalaran fruit vendor. I actually laughed at that one as the damage added up to a few gold pieces, but in retrospect, that only made him think that buying stuff on my toons would illicit a positive reaction.
I was playing an alt one Saturday morning when I got up to use the bathroom. I returned to find my son in my seat and I knew there was trouble when he said, "Look in your bags." This time it was milk, ice-cold milk. However, it was a bit more severe as he had deleted all the items in all of my bags in order to cram as much milk as he could on the toon. I didn't even have my hearthstone. I was just so glad that I was playing a low-level alt that I didn't really care about it.
The final incident unfortunately concerned my death knight. My son was helping me with my Sons of Hodir dailies and I got up to take a phone call. Upon my return, I was 800g poorer but I had a nice new ice mammoth mount to match the one that I already had. So I sold it back and recouped what little I could. That one stung a bit.
Keep in mind that in between these events comes weeks of playing without incident. He learns and in general it is a very positive experience for us both. I just have come to accept that every once in a while my toons will be plummeted from the top of Dalaran to their death or have all their gear unequipped in exchange for trash grays. What I'm really worried about is when they are able to actually spell and type the word Delete.
Stay tuned for more Tales of Kindercraft! In the meantime, do any of you have any misadventures to share about things that happened to your character when you weren't in control? How about any other stories about playing WoW with children?
Bad News, Bears?
"Am I level 10 or 80? Who knows!"
Blizzard just slipped us a sneak preview of the long-awaited updated models for the druid animal forms. Currently, the preview only shows the tauren bear form, but they announced that the night elf bear form will be revealed by the end of the week.
They mention that there are five different skins for each animal form per faction. In other words, each druid will have access to five unique bear forms and five unique cat forms, which will differ from druids of the opposing faction. The various skins are chosen and changed in the barbershop.
I don't play a druid, but I wonder how I would feel if I waited this long for a new look to accompany my feral side. All the other classes have been able to improve their gear and change their appearances drastically, but the poor bears and cats have been looking at the same models for over four years. There must be throngs of druids jumping up and down at this announcement.
For some reason, I was expecting more than just a simple cosmetic change via the barbershop. How long will these new forms be interesting or exciting? Don't get me wrong, the screenshots of the tauren bear forms look awesome, but I think the issue is deeper than that. The problem is, these new models are still static. They don't change as your character improves or gets new gear. Unless they plan on implementing new skins on a regular basis, they, too, will get stale. These changes also do nothing for our healing druids in tree form.
I can sympathize with the complexity of trying to integrate item upgrades onto multiple animal forms. As it is, when they create a new item they have to make sure it looks right on twenty different models representing both genders of each race. Adding item textures for the bear, cat and tree forms of both factions would be a huge drain of time and resources. However, I can't help thinking there would be some way to at least have some visual representation of how well-geared you were while in these forms.
Perhaps they could use the average item level of the equipped gear to determine how ferocious or predatory your toon looks. They have similar technology already coded. For example, the Flame Leviathan vehicles check the average item level of their driver to determine how powerful they should be. How amazing would it be to have the top gear from Ulduar hard modes and strut around Dalaran in animal forms few others could duplicate? A few glow and particle effects could easily differentiate a druid in heroic blues versus a druid decked out in tier 8. Glowing eyes, saliva-dripping maws and bristling fur embody the druid's natural fury a bit better than a trip to the hair salon for a fur-frosting and dye job.
Let us assume they added three visual upgrades with each raiding tier and included the neglected tree form as well. Then for the 3.1 patch, they would have needed to design a total of eighteen new models, which includes different models for both the Horde and the Alliance. This sounds reasonable to me and would certainly give druids of all types something to look forward to as they geared up and progressed through content. In any case, I'm going to head over the official WoW forums so I can watch the shadow priests crying over not having new models for their shadowform!
What do you think of Blizzard's announcement? Are you satisfied or were you also hoping for something that scaled with gear?