This has been a great week for the blog. My blog has steadily grown over the past year despite my lick of editing and I've been pretty happy with it's size. I was getting on average 300 or 400 hits a day. Getting some nice comments after my posts, with people asking questions and disputing my articles. I even have had some one ask to advertise on my site. All good stuff.
Now I've had two events happen in one week that I consider major mile stones for the blog. First on Tuesday I had over 1000 hits in a single day. That isn't much compared to some of the big blogs like Resto4Life or World of Matticus, but it doubled my previous record. It basically told me that when people had questions about this patch, that they wanted to hear my opinion. I was shocked and humbled by it.
The second mile stone happened today. I was linked on WoWInsider (link). I have followed this site for WoW news for quite a while and hoped that one day they might notice me. I have privately been critical of WoWInsider's coverage of Moonkin in the past because I thought most of it was a list of changes with little or no analysis. This article defies all of my previous concerns. I don't necessarily agree with all of comments made but it was obvious that Allison Robert did her research and knew the issues.
I just want to say thank you to WoW Insider for the links and taking a serious look at moonkin. If my blog helped in any way then I am pleased.
To any new readers that may have just found there way here I say welcome. I hope you find my site useful and please feel free to ask me questions or comment on my posts.
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11 comments:
Big Grats to my favourite pile of feathers!! Love always, Lots
Congratulations-- its recognition well deserved. While I go to Resto4Life and World of Matticus for their just plain good blogging and analysis of wow and druidy things, I am very happy to also have Gray Matter to turn to.
Finally, a place for 'Balance' druids that is 'more' than just 'what I did in wow today'. Well thought out analysis, insight into your daily grind/raid, and giving an understandable explanation for what's going on in wow and how it affects balance druids. Thats why I come to Gray Matter.
Reading Matticus makes me want to roll a priest, but GM makes me happy to be balance ^_^*)! While there are gradually more websites/blogs to turn to, I have not found another that serves me as well Gray Matter when I want to understand my balance druid a little better.
Keep up the awesome work, I appreciate it each time I come here.
Grats Gray. Its well earned.
Its mainly due to your blog i knew in which direction to steer my moonkin with this patch.
Keep up the good work!
Hey GM,
It was completely my pleasure, and I was happy to find a commenter on Balance issues who'd really taken a hard look at the changes to the spec. I try to keep an eye on a wide array of WoW blogs, and yours is excellent.
The dirty little secret of most everything I write is that I don't agree with everything I write either. During any given article I'm usually thinking of encounters in which an otherwise good piece of theorycraft or advice might be wrong (e.g. MF+SF rotation on bosses - and then you hit, say, Supremus, where something like that might very well be suicide during phase 2). And we have a good group of commenters who will ALWAYS nail that stuff. That's good for readers - means there's more information out there - but it's also damn near impossible to write any broad-based article on a game mechanic without knowing that covering every possible exception or contingency is going to result in a 12,000 word tract.
Frankly what most concerns me about theorycraft re: moonkin in "Wrath" is situations like that. Blizzard has been very clearly about its desire to move (most) 5-man and raid encounters away from the tank-and-spank paradigm, and that has obvious implications for most caster DPS rotations. So that's where the gulf between the numbers and reality starts to get bigger. Eclipse was not, to my mind, a great talent if for no other reason than the potential for Wrath to get clipped constantly by Nature's Grace - but it might be a decent talent for high-mobility fights where opportunities to chain-cast Starfire will be few and far between.
Ditto Improved Faerie Fire. It's pretty much a crap talent in its current form...unless Blizzard extensively implements fights where DPS mobility will place crit at a premium. We all know what our numbers are on Dr. Boom or a target dummy. The likelihood of those numbers appearing on a boss fight? Well, we'll see.
And I don't entirely disagree about the state of WI's moonkin coverage (I don't think John or Eliah would either). We *have* had analytical articles on the spec in the past, but they've been few and far between of late, and I do regret that. Part of the problem is that John and Eliah are, as far as I'm aware, feral the vast majority of the time, and at 70 I've switched pretty regularly between feral and resto. I don't know about John or Eliah but I have never, barring a single Kara run, had the opportunity to raid Balance; my guild has always needed me to tank or heal, and the same is generally true of most Druids.
The last statistics I saw on spec percentages had the active Balance population at roughly 17% of Druids, and that's roughly consistent with how requests to the site break down; most of our questions still concern feral or resto matters.
So I'm on the lookout for more potential Balance topics and I'll be keeping an eye on your blog, if that's OK. And I do love moonkin; I leveled Balance and it had originally been my intent to stay that way at 70, but you couldn't get a tank for love or money on my realm, so - /feral (and then I found out I loved tanking and healing too. I just love being a Druid, period). But I still find Balance discussion on various forums and blogs to be very engaging, and I like to stay current with moonkin concerns and theorycraft. Please keep up the great work!
- Allie Robert :o)
Gz dude =) I think people are getting
more interested in Moonkins now that we.. kind of own? :)
keep it up and I'm sure you'll be the number 1# moonkin blogg in the world.
Grats on all the great stuff that's happened for you. I've been reading this for a little while but this is my first comment. You have some great information on here. I've learned quite a bit. So thanks.
I just wanted to say thanks for this blog, I will be bookmarking it to read regularly.
I am a regular at World of Matticus as my second character, my holy priest, became my main some time ago, however, my first character and my first and only 70 for quite awhile was my balance druid.
I am excited about the changes to moonkins in the expansion and will be gladly reading up more on your theories here.
Glad you got linked :) I love WoW Insider, but it can be a frustrating place for a moonkin in search of information. Yours is the top site where I have consistently found interesting and relevant information to guide my feathery druids through Azeroth and beyond.
Yours is THE blog for moonkin analysis. Simple as that.
I'd guess your traffic has been low only because moonkin were not well represented in TBC raiding... expect it to take off :)
You shouldn't be surprised by this. You are one of the best and most thoughtful bloggers out there. You don't fill your site with clutter and noise. It is hard, useful information. Heck my main is a paladin. I have a 70 druid alt who goes back and forth between resto and balance. But when I want to know how to spec and how to play Boomkin this is where I come. You upped my dps by 200 in just one read.
Keep up the good work. You stuck with an awkward spec when people mocked it. By the time everyone levels to 80 and those Flavour of the Month Moonkins are pwning damage metres you will be a legend :)
Thank you everyone for your comments and encouragement. It is deeply satisfing to know that I've been helpful.
I don't know if my blog will maintain this level of activity after the expansion and everything cools down, but it is fun right now.
I've got some good stuff planned for the next couple of weeks, so please stay tuned.
@Allison Robert
Thanks for taking the time to respond. Here are a couple of responces I would like to make.
1. I completely understand the relatively small amount of regular Moonkin coverage on the WoW Insider. Moonkin is not a popular spec, and I would guess it is even less popular among more "serious" players who do research and visit sites like WoW Insider regularly. Plus, it's not like there has been a ton of Moonkin news over the past two years. My main concern was that when there was news it wasn't analized or the person who did analize it obviously put no effort into it. I understand that you guys are busy and write on a lot of different topics, but it's just a little frustrating.
2. I don't think more movement dependant fights will make Starfire rotations less attractive. If starfire is a better spell it is a better spell. Sure, you will have to cut off a spell every so often, but the same will be true for Wrath. Plus wrath will still have all of it's usual promblems.
3. High movement fights make Eclipse a HORRIBLE talent, because you will lose half your proc to movement. Murmurs has a great post on the WoW forums regarding all of this. I linked in my Moonkin Nerfed post.
4. Please keep up the good work, but if your ever looking for Moonkin input into an issue please feel free to contact me. I would be happy to be a sounding board or write something for your site.
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