Midlife Crisis Takes a Turn for the Better
Walk on the wide side with Level 36's new toys for your animal forms.

Leaping Leper Gnomes!
An introduction to toxic Gnomeregan.

A Bandage and a Kiss
Making the most of Artisan First Aid.

Fight or Flight?
As Druids, we must question fate.

Reputation: The Sequel
Size up additional factions... and take a peek at the dark side of the spectrum.

Zone map

Gnomeregan is now known as the irradiated home of the eccentric Gnomes. Once a great city similar to Ironforge, it became infested with vile Troggs and the Gnomes went a bit overboard in their attempt to kill them, introducing loads of toxic waste into the land. Unfortunately, this only made the Troggs grow in strength, and any Gnomes left inside were mutated into sickly Leper Gnomes.

Gnomeregan is a 5-man instance in Dun Morogh, spanning the upper 20s to the upper 30s.The later parts of the dungeon are mainly Level 33-35 mobs. A group consisting of all Level 35+ players, with at least one Warrior (a Druid in Bear form may be substituted) and one healer (Priest, Druid, Paladin, or Shaman) should have no problem doing a complete clear. The remaining three spots will generally be damage-dealers, but may also be another healer or armored class to lighten the load. However, too many healers could cause problems if the overall group can't deal enough DPS to move quickly through the instance. It's also best to bring along at least one Hunter for a secondary objective built into the final boss fight that requires additional speed.

The entrance is directly east of Ironforge, buried in the mountain range. It's surrounded by twisting gears, little green Gnomes, and a cloud of toxic smoke. Expect similar-themed mobs inside, ranging from Caverndeep Troggs and Leper Gnomes to all manner of malfunctioning mechanical security devices.

Once inside, you'll see a series of tunnels that may look daunting at first, but there's one simple path to reach the main entrance (there's another entrance, but for first-timers, it's inaccessible). This main tunnel leads directly down to an elevator. However, be careful, as the tunnel is littered with hostile Leper Gnomes. At the base of the elevator the pathway splits up, resembling the Tram, the underground tunnel connecting Ironforge and Stormwind. At this point, the Troggs become more of a problem, so going in alone is nearly impossible. Hang a left on this path and follow all the way down until you reach the main entrance of Gnomeregan.

Gnomeregan is a relatively simple instance. With a full group and careful planning, a full run should be no problem. Keep an eye out for Gnomeregan quests in all areas, not just Ironforge; there are quite a few majors ones found in Stormwind and Kharanos as well. Best of luck!

When your First Aid skills progress to 225, you can upgrade to Artisan First Aid. This upgrade is more difficult than the previous upgrades, as it requires the completion of a First Aid quest granted by Doctor Gregory Victor in Hammerfall.

Your point-and-click First Aid skills will be put to the test with 15 injured soldiers whose lives are rapidly deteriorating. Each soldier will have a prefix to their name indicating their level of distress. Using the triage bandages given to you by the Doctor, the soldiers closest to dying should be bandaged first, followed by those less vitally injured. Highest priority patients are "Critically Injured," followed by "Badly Injured," and basic "Injured" patients are the lowest priority. The quest will end when 6 patients die (failure) or you've saved the lives of 15 patients (success).

This is a difficult quest that will keep you moving as fast as you possibly can, while constantly scanning soldiers so you can adjust your priorities on the fly. Don't worry if you have to do the quest more than once. Just stay focused and you'll eventually succeed. If you do have trouble completing the quest, try starting at one end of the room and then move clockwise or counterclockwise, jumping ahead only when there is a higher priority patient who appears. By taking care of patients in order of priority level while also taking into account the amount of time they've been lying on the cots, you have a better chance of getting to the patients before they disappear (or "die"). Even the soldiers who are simply Injured will die if they go too long without medical treatment.

Artisan skill allows you to advance to the highest Skill Level (300) and create Heavy Mageweave Bandages (240), Runecloth Bandages (260), Heavy Runecloth Bandages (290), and Powerful Anti-Venom (300). Most of these recipes can only be learned from Doctor Gregory Victor in Hammerfall, so you'll need to return to him as your skill level progresses. In order to learn Powerful Anti-Venom, you must be Honored with the Argent Dawn and buy the recipe from one of their vendors.

Best of luck with those bandages, and try not to hurt yourself too much!

You may have noticed the bunnies, cockroaches, and even cows wandering around the game world with the classification of "critter." Critters are "flavor" mobs introduced into the game that yield no experience and can't be looted -- although they may be skinned.

No doubt being a well-adjusted, healthy person, you've never found reason to engage these poor, dumb animals in combat. If you did, though, you'd see that they don't fight back -- they flee like the helpless creatures they are.

Did you know that you can have a critter of your very own? Cats, birds, and even more exotic animals can be obtained from vendors, as quest rewards or drops, and even as crafted items. The easiest way to find a critter is to visit the Prairie Dog Vendor in Thunder Bluff. He'll sell you an item (cat carrier or whistle) that when used will "summon" your pet. These pets don't give you any advantage in combat, but they can add personality to your character.

As you have probably already surmised, the Druid class as a whole exhibits an aptitude for making the best of tough situations. At this point your forms are not particularly powerful, but your versatility is becoming more and more refined by each level-up. Because your current bracket will expose you to a wide variety of zones, mobs, and quests, perfecting an improvisational fighting style is useful. While Druids at this level are usually not considered the best in damage, tanking ability, or healing when compared to other classes, you can master the unique art of biding time to ensure a successful battle. And once you become accustomed to improvising, repair bills will be a thing of the past!

Unlike some classes, a Druid has a lot of choices with regard to enemy confrontations. For example, in PvE, make it a point to stay away from healer classes because Druids' only reliable spell interrupter is Bash. This spell can be very useful, but because it's limited to Bear Form and has a one-minute cooldown, steering clear of healers will keep your downtime to a minimum.

On the other end of the spectrum, fighting beasts and dragonkin gives you extra control over fights when you incorporate Hibernate as a form of crowd control or to give yourself a few extra seconds to regroup. Also, try to fight enemies at your level or a level below to decrease the odds that your life-saving crowd control spells will be resisted.

Choosing enemies according to your strengths ensures short battles and a lower overall chance of death. Your ability to survive battles will increase if you fight mobs in outdoor areas. If you fight in caves and other indoor places, prepare to lose 2 or 3 key abilities: Entangling Roots, Nature's Grasp (if spec allows), and Travel Form. If you are really in a bind, try popping into Travel Form to create some space between you and the mob. This will give you time to cast Entangling Roots or a heal without interruption.

Cat Form, in particular, is dramatically enhanced in this level bracket. At Level 32, you will obtain Track Humanoids for Cat form, which is handy in both PvP and PvE as it allows you to locate both friendly and unfriendly entities. Also at Level 32, you obtain other enhancing Cat Form abilities, including your new starting move, Ravage, and a powerful finishing move, Ferocious Bite. If you choose to fight indoors, remember that you can still use your Dash ability to escape from enemies.

For grouping, you will learn some key abilities in this level bracket. Yet another useful Cat Form ability, Cower, can be used if you feel you are drawing too much aggro from the main tank. It can be especially useful before and after casting Tranquility when all of your group members need a significant heal. Also, be sure to keep an eye out for poison debuffs on all of your group members, as you can use Abolish Poison to keep necessary heals to a minimum, especially when you expect poison to be reapplied during the battle, or stacked multiple times.

At these levels, always remember that you are good at everything, but not great at anything. Adjust your playing style to take advantage of those aspects of the Druid path you enjoy most. If you stay adaptable and mentally prepared for fights, leveling a Druid can be a very rewarding experience.

How do you know your PvP flag is set? When your faction crest appears next to your portrait.

You normally won't see that crest in starter areas of the game -- they're designated "safe" areas in which your flag is set to off by default, regardless of server type.

Note the quotes around the word "safe". Although you can actively set your PvP flag by typing "/pvp" in your chat window, there are ways that your PvP flag will automatically set, and opposing players will then be able to kill you. Your flag can be set when:

• You attack or debuff a member of the opposite faction.
• You heal or buff a member of your faction who has their flag set.

As you explore the game world, you'll come across many more factions whose reputation meters will automatically be added to your reputation tab. Some of these factions include Cenarion Circle, a group of Druids in Moonglade heavily involved in Druid development starting at Level 10; Silithus, a high-end zone; and Ratchet, part of the Steamwheedle Cartel of goblins that operates on the east coast of The Barrens.

Gaining Favor

You'll often start at Neutral reputation with these factions, and can gain access to special items available for purchase based on your rep with them. Cenarion Circle, for instance, offers various trade skill patterns at each rep level, as well as new quests. Much of the rep gained for these factions is done by killing certain monsters. For Steamwheedle Cartel, for instance, killing Wastewander humanoids in Tanaris, a Level 40 zone, grants rep for the faction at a low rate. Additionally, some repeatable rep quests are available, such as the "Field Duty" for Cenarion Circle or the turn-ins of Wastewander Water Pouches at Gadgetzan for Steamwheedle Cartel. Both Cenarion Circle and Steamwheedle Cartel are accessible to Horde and Alliance, unlike the starting faction races.

Steamwheedle Cartel is a rather interesting faction because, similar to Alliance and Horde, it runs out of four cities, each with a separate rep bar, but they act as a team. Raising your reputation with Ratchet by completing their quests will also slightly raise your rep with Booty Bay, Gadgetzan, and Winterspring. Similarly, doing quests for the other members of the Cartel or killing their rep mobs will increase your rep across the whole team. Currently, Steamwheedle Cartel is the only non-basic faction set that works in this way.

Getting Perks

Some factions play a vital role in endgame events. For the first 40-man raid instance, Molten Core, the final boss isn't accessible without Honored among the Hydraxian Waterlords. The Argent Dawn, an organization you can meet in the low 20s, gives rep-based prices for entrance into Naxxramas, another 40-man raid instance.

Other factions, such as the Magram and Gelkis Centaur Clans, only play a part in a limited portion of the game. The Centaur Clans are found only in Desolace, which is a Level 30-40 zone. Typically, if a non-basic faction isn't involved in a Level 50+ zone somewhere, it's designed to be a passing thing. One exception to this is the Darkmoon Faire, a traveling faction that sets up in Mulgore and Goldshire on an alternating schedule. Darkmoon Faire is a flavor faction of sorts, offering games and refreshments, as well as requiring a certain rep level in order to buy certain items. This faction is placed in Level 5-10 zones, but has purchasable items that can aid Level 60 characters.

Losing Favor

A general rule of thumb for reputation: you want to be Honored with every main faction you come across, so that you can lower your costs at each of the faction's cities. Some factions, like Bloodsail Buccaneers, have an inverse relationship of rep with another faction. For them, your rep lowers every time your Steamwheedle Cartel rep rises. This brings us to the negative rep spectrum:

Hated: 36,000 required to rank up to Hostile
Hostile: 3,000 required to rank up to Unfriendly
Unfriendly: 3,000 required to rank up to Neutral

Very few factions start or go to the negative rep spectrum within standard practices. In fact, the only factions that can go to the negative spectrum without directly killing their NPCs are the Magram and Gelkis Centaur Clans, who have an inverse relationship of rep, and the Bloodsail Buccaneers. All other factions can only be brought to negative by killing their faction member NPCs. One downside of the negative spectrum is that if you're Hostile or Hated by the faction, you're Kill on Sight (KOS) to that faction, so their NPCs will attack you if you get into their aggro radius. At Unfriendly, you can still engage in a fight with them, but they won't attack you unless provoked. The NPCs won't help you while you're lower than Neutral, though, so don't even try to talk to them if you're not at least Neutral.

For factions with the inverse relationships, choosing which faction you support can have interesting consequences. For instance, if you choose to support the Bloodsail Buccaneers over the Steamwheedle Cartel, you'll lose access to four cities (Tanaris, Booty Bay, Everlook, and Ratchet) in exchange for some new flavor gear that most players won't attempt to get, making the gear rather unique. Supporting the Steamwheedle Cartel over the Bloodsail Buccaneers essentially locks you out of those flavor gear pieces, but allows you to work from those four cities and use them as quest hubs.

Keeping Track

One last important note: You can replace or supplement your experience bar with a faction's rep meter through the reputation tab of the Character Sheet. To do this, highlight the rep meter and check the appropriately labeled box. This is very useful for tracking your progress with a faction with whom you're working on raising your rep, as well as in late-game play.

That's pretty much everything you need to know about rep. There are plenty more factions than the ones mentioned in this article, so be sure to explore and find them all.

It's good to take time out every once in a while to slow down and look around, even in World of Warcraft. There are a lot of game animations that you might miss if you don't pay attention.

So what can you see... if you're lucky? Some examples:

• A cat or a wolf veering out to "bag" a rabbit or other critter.
• Skeletons popping off their heads and tossing them in the air.

The best place to catch "passive" content is in towns, where children scamper about swapping tales, torturers transmogrify prisoners, and tons of conversations present ripe opportunities for eavesdropping. You may even run into outriders with flatulent mounts if you're (un)lucky.

There's a lot of rich, scripted detail in the game, so keep your eyes open and enjoy it!