The folks over at MMO Champion uncovered something interesting: BatTroll! You’ll likely see him swinging from spires in Ogrimmar fighting crime by the light of the moon, striking fear into the hearts of any Alliance who would dare attempt to sneak through the gates and lurk about the city at night.

Seriously, the video above is of the epic flight form that Troll Druids can expect to earn for themselves when they level to the point where they can get it – since currently the only Druids in the game have unique flight forms for their races, you can expect to see more epic flight forms come down the pike before Cataclysm is released next month – now less than a month away!

Still, you have to admit – those guys look ugly as sin, don’t they? Although I admit, seeing them swooping down on me from the skies in PVP would be pretty terrifying.

So it might still be a little early to ask the question we always ask after every major content patch or series of changes, but we’re going to ask it anyway: How’s that patch 4.0.1 working out for you?

See that image up there? If you haven’t been paying attention, Druids lost the ability to permemently stay in the Tree of Life form, and to boot, they lost the familiar old stubble-legged tree that we’ve come to know and love. Now, when they turn into a tree, they become the model you see above (with different colors to match their character appearance) and can only stay in the form for 30 seconds. Makes staying in tree form during boss fights pretty difficult, don’t you think?

In 4.0.1 we essentially all got a brand new game. Add-ons are still largely broken for a large part, the UI and graphics have been updated remarkably, Archeology has been added to the game, and all in all the groundwork has been laid for Cataclysm to be released.

In the interim though, what do you think? How have your characters been adjusting to the changes? Any highs or lows to report? Are all of your add-ons still busted or did you make it through the changes unscathed? Sound off in the comments!

Warning: This is likely to be a bit long-winded. For that, I apologize.

First I have to state my unbelieveable hatred with cows. I don’t hate cows the animal, I hate the race Tauren. I don’t hate them in the way most people hate Blood Elves, but I hate their size. I hate their mounts. And I hate how much screen real estate they possess. That being said, the majority of my toons are Horde. I made myself a druid cow, and truly had no idea what I was doing. At level 18, I hated it. I shelved the toon in favor of leveling something else (see: Bubble Pally). The boyfriend and I are on a very Horde heavy server. Any time the balance between Horde and Alliance is tipped that far, it means that since the majority if the population is on one side, it also means the majority of the, uh, “not nice” (see: douchebag) players are also on that faction. The boyfriend and I rolled Alliance toons. I can’t speak for him, but I gladly went Alliance because I was so tired of the douche-baggery prevalent on Horde side.

On Alliance, since the boyfriend made a warrior I decided to try my hand at healing… as a druid. I hit 80 recently, and have been slowly working at obtaining gear. I have to say, I love it. I love playing a druid! LOVE!

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Blizzard unveiled some previews of what the Cataclysm talent trees will look like based on some of the changes they’re making in the alpha test, and WoW.com has the scoop, including a wealth of analysis on the tree previews that have been released.

So far, Rogues have had their trees previewed, along with druids, shamans, and priests. Now Wow.com has had their columnists dissecting some of the specific trees and specs to reflect on what the trees may mean, so click through as the new columns are added. It’s pretty big news, and it’s a little unlike Blizzard to let news this major out unless we’re closer to a Cataclysm beta than we may have originally thought. Here’s hoping!

If you look at the patch 3.3.3 notes, you’ll see that feral druids will get a boost to their Mangle damage if they choose to glyph for it. Well, there’s a slight bug on the PTR, where the Glyph of Mangle actually increases Mangle damage by 6000%, instead of what it’s supposed to be – a much smaller number.

The result? The video above, which shows some pretty insane crits by a feral druid lurking about Orgrimmar having a great time. We’re talking SIX. DIGIT. CRITS. Click play, bump up the video quality, and have a blast. There’s absolutely no way this is getting to the live realms, but it’s fun to watch!

Icedragon, of the blog Druid Main, has a little problem. See, she can’t draw.

So she’s looking for a little help filling in the gaps on her site with some artwork, and she’s holding an art contest to draw in some submissions and reward the artists who take their time to support her and enter the contest! She says:

All of my images are done via Photoshop and using digital models from the WoW Model Viewer, but they’re not as high-grade as they could be in terms of digital/artistic quality. Most of my work is for banners, logos, emblems, etc but no “artsy” pieces. Seriously, I cannot draw anything for myself other than stick figures, and stick figures just aren’t good enough for this post (see right)! So I’m turning to my readers and any artistic folks that want to get their creativity groove on.

Artists of all types and stripes are invited to enter, and the full rules are over at the contest announcement at Druid Main. All of the winners will find their artwork posted on her site, but Icedragon promises that of all of those entries she’ll choose a grand prize winner, an Arch-druid winner, if you will, who will be the lucky recipient of a 60 day World of Warcraft gamecard she happens to have and is willing to get rid of!

And yes, frankly – I can’t draw either, but if I could, I’d probably enter myself and keep this quiet so I’d increase my odds of winning. But alas.

So if you’re an artist, love or play World of Warcraft, or a WoW-related artist, head on over and enter the contest! The deadline for entries is November 5th!

(click the image above to embiggen!)

I don’t know who originally made this, but they’re probably one of the best feral druids I’ve never met.

Image courtesy of @valkyrierisen on Twitter, who found it through her guild forums – if anyone knows where it originated, shout it out in the comments!

The following is Alamo’s guide to Druids. Titled “Alamo Teeches U 2 Play Durid”, this writeup used to be a classic until Blizzard discovered that it didn’t have a sense of humor or community oriented policing and unstickied as well as locked the thread, ensuring it would be gone within the month.

To make this clear, I did not write Alamo’s guide, I am not Alamo, and I do not assert any rights to the text ot the images. But this icon of Druidic humor is too historical and hysterical to be forgotten.

Some notes:

* If you don’t find it funny, chances are you’re not a Druid :)
* If you’re wondering what the Innervate issue is, chances are you’re a new Druid. There once was a time when Innervate was a 31 pt. talent, and to get it Druids had to spec so deep into Restoration their DPS assumed the damage potential and consistency of a wet noodle.

With that in mind, heer is Alamo teeches U 2 play Durid…
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So, I decided to solo Scarlet Monastery with my level 60 druid. I walked in to the first instance and started a fight with the first two Scarlet D00ds. Eight kills later and the battle is over, with three dead “outside” the instance, and thus unlootable. The reason I thought I’d give SM a go was for a chance of a blue BoE gun for my new Hunter, so seeing unlootable corpses was a bit annoying. I proceeded to nuke my way to the Houndmaster, then I stealthed through to the end to get the key I’d never got before. Solo grinding mid-level instances for BoE drops is not for druids. Hunters and mages mostly, I think.