From Swipe to Hair Decorations

12th October 2010
Your typical Swipe attack has the bear-form druid extend a foreleg and swipe - so hard and so furiously that the motion carries the druid up on to stand on his (or her) rear legs as he (or she) continues to spin around, slashing everyone in range, before finally completing the spin and thunking down on to all fours again. It is strong and effective and you can use it to hit everyone around you.

The problem is, it's not as damaging or as threatening as it could be. You end up using it all the time and all the spinning around makes you thoroughly dizzy. It's good that in bear-form I have un-Tauren features and fur covering my face, because otherwise everyone would see how green and dizzy I am after a heated battle.

But here comes the good news.

The other day I was by the druidic tent on Thunder Bluff, and saw Turak, one of the trainers, practicing his bear moves. Only, his Swipe was different. It was *strong*, and vicious.

Here's the good news - it's so strong, and so vicious, that you don't need to be spinning around all the time anymore.

But then I heard the bad news - he's *also* working on a new move, where he thoroughly thrashes everyone around him and makes them bleed. Which of course means more spinning. Oh joy.

Changing topic a lot, he saw that I was wearing some cloth bracers. How did he do that? They're mostly covered by my gloves. Anyway, he saw my cloth bracers and shifted back to Tauren form.

"Hail, and well met, brother druid."

"Hail," I said.

"I can't help but notice you're wearing some cloth bracers."

Of course I was surpised - as I said, they're almost completely hidden by gloves, but I nodded along with him. There's a reason he's the druid trainer and I'm not. "Indeed I am. I haven't yet been able to find any leather bracers better than them."

"Great changes are afoot, Donda," he said. "You have already seen our improved Swipe, which we will be teaching very soon. Once we get the kinks worked out, anyway..."

"Kinks?"

"It is a very forcible spin. You need control, and balance, unlike poor Kym, who went spinning right off the Elder Rise."

"Oh my goodness. Is she okay?"

"She went splat. We were able to revive her though. But Donda! I was telling you about our upcoming changes, and I'm worried about your bracers! Something else we're working on is a type of... specialisation, or meditation, or peace of mind, or something, that comes with wearing leather armor."

"How does that work?" I asked.

"I'm not too sure," Turak admitted. "It's something to do with the nature of the material, and attuning yourself to it... or something... It is very advanced, and only Hamuul Runetotem knows the full details. The upshot is that you will want leather bracers as soon as you can get them."

That's easy for him to say. Do you know how impossible it's been for me to find a decent set of leather bracers? I checked the Auction House, Langrom's Leathers And Links shop in Dalaran, and the Sunreavers' emblem vendors, and all I could find were some dinky leather bracers hidden under a shelf at Leathers and Links that were *almost*, but not quite, good enough.

"I forgot we had those," said Valerie Langrom.

They were a truly ridiculous 60 conquest emblems, or something like that. But who uses conquest emblems these days? Valerie Langrom, obviously.

"Conquest emblems are awesome," she said. "They make great hair decorations."

So my quest for suitably useful leather bracers continues.