It all started around level 22, when I¡¯d just received the second rank of the spell. (This was about the time in the game when players on PvP servers start exploring contested zones where player vs. player combat is allowed.) I saw a human warrior running from a mob pull that went terribly wrong. I was in a moral quandary. Should I let him live? In fear that someone might call me a ¡°carebear¡± and make some comment about my manhood in Ashenvale general chat, I jumped in pursuit. I figured that if it¡¯s red it¡¯s dead¡ªI was going to finish the job the assassins started. I ran after him, hoof against foot, until I got into range and smashed my moonfire key enough that I think the number 3 was imprinted in my finger for a week.

Moonfire is an instant damage spell in the MMO, doing a small amount of damage and then putting a small damage-over-time (DoT) effect on the target. It isn¡¯t cheap, either, costing 495 mana for the top rank; it¡¯s incredibly inefficient at sending the opponent on a nice corpse run.

That makes moonfire quite the double-edged sword¡ªit¡¯s really embarrassing to die to, but you never want to admit that you killed someone by spamming moonfire over and over. Just like the priest that runs around Arathi Basin putting shadow word: pain on every player in a forty-yard radius (much to the chagrin of mages and their sheep), there¡¯s always a druid or two on every server who does nothing but stand in the back and rain down sparkles from the sky on anybody in range.

Sometimes, I am that druid.

Moonfire gets the job done. There¡¯s something satisfying about running after a player who is trying to escape with only a sliver of health and gunning him or her down. Gotcha! While doing this, I¡¯ll usually sing a line that goes, ¡°Moonfire! You¡¯ll get caught up in the . . . moonfire!¡± to the tune from the ¡¯90s commercial for the popular board game Crossfire.

Players can now cast their own Moonfire in the World of Warcraft TCG, but the new Fires of Outland card makes you proud to spread the love in every game.