No doubt many of us are closely following progression in heroic Icecrown Citadel. There are a lot of guilds gunning for the position for the best guild in the world.

Ahead of everybody else is Paragon from Lightnings Blade EU, and I hooked up with their very own moonkin Lappé for a little chat.

- First off, can you tell us your name, how old you are, and how long you have been playing WoW?
My real name is Niko Lappeteläinen – now you can try to pronounce it properly! I am 18 years old and I have been playing World of Warcraft since the summer of ’06, although I did have a break before The Burning Crusade.

- Have you always been playing moonkin/druid?
My main has always been a druid. In The Burning Crusade I was “forced” to play as restoration if I wanted raid spots. When Wrath of the Lich King came, I was able to switch to moonkin.

- What is it that makes you play a moonkin? Why not another caster class?
I’ve always loved to play moonkin, as long as I can get raid spots with that spec. In case I get bored, I have a few alts that I can play. I haven’t really considered rolling a mage or a warlock as a serious main, cause I don’t believe there is nothing a mage can do that a moonkin can’t – except, perhaps, for proper PVP!

- Looking at the grand scale of things, how do you feel moonkins have progressed through the expansions?
I stopped playing around level 57 before The Burning Crusade, so I really can’t remember much of those times, and back in The Burning Crusade, I mainly played as restoration. It was easier to get a raid spot as a moonkin in WOTLK because of our raid buffs.

- How do you think moonkins compare to other DPS classes?
In regards to damage, we’ve always been a bit behind other classes, but never too much. Even if I hate the RNG part of eclipse, I still love it when I get the best possible RNG and top our other casters! Ofcourse, we will have to wait and see what happens once we all begin to wear heroic loot. We might fall a bit behind because of our scaling with soft haste and crit caps.

- What kind of difficulties have you noted with the bosses in Icecrown Citadel?
Actually, there is nothing that has really bugged me in Icecrown Citadel. I think we are quite strong and usefull for every fight. Sindragosa, for example, is a real badass, but that is the same for every caster. For all fights, you just have to figure out how to maximize your DPS without dying, but theres nothing we can’t handle.

- What do you think about the difficulty of the instances and the “casual catering” that people have been complaining about?
Icecrown Citadel on normal is okay for casuals, but the hardmodes are pretty well tuned right now. I’d just wish they would have removed limited attempts earlier and come up with something really hard for the heroic modes that would actually last for couple of weeks.

- What kind of changes would you like to see being made to moonkins?
Short answer would be “More DPS, less RNG”. I’d like to see a change to Nature’s Grace and Eclipse to make them something less dependable on crit.

- If you could take one talent from another class, what would it be?
That would be the old ignite for mages for sure. It would keep stacking up as long as you can keep up your crit streak, so if we add that to eclipse we would be able to reach huge numbers. Languish is similar, but it won’t refresh its duration completely if you lose a crit.

With the old ignite, you could have a tick followed by a crit, and it would retain the full effect, stacking it up to 100.000+ damage ignites! At least, that’s how I think it worked.

Once (and if) they remove eclipse my decision would probably be different, though.

- Are you going to be playing in Cataclysm, and what are you looking forward to?
I will try to play as much as I can, but I am scheduled to go to the army this summer. I am definitely looking forward to seeing what Cataclysm brings to druids.

- Are you going to change to troll in Cataclysm?
If it’s a huge DPS benefit, then I probably will, but I would rather not. We will have to see what kind of changes they bring with the new tauren racials as well, if they follow through with that.

- How does hardcore raiding effect your real life?
It’s not really “hardcore” raiding. It’s hardcore for just a few weeks, until we beat the content, but it’s not really that hard. Once we beat the encounters, it doesn’t take that long to clear the instances, and we go back to a much more casual raiding schedule.

- What is your favourite dungeon of all times?
I always prefer the one that holds the hardest difficulty level – so right now, I enjoy ICC the most. I don’t hold any favourites with all of the old stuff – if someone asks me to join, I’ll probably go!

- Finally, if Mumins were a playable class, would you switch to it?
Definitely – they’ll probably get better racials than taurens!

To catch up on Paragon’s progression in Icecrown Citadel, check out http://www.paragon-wow.com!

Tags: awesome, burning crusade, crit, damage, eclipse, Icecrown Citadel, ideas, insect swarm, interview, nature's grace, vanilla

This entry was posted on February 12, 2010 at 8:30 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Raiding by Qieth 10 Comments