Twig Heals

Twig Heals Has Just Turned 1 (and I've got the tree rings to prove it)

2010-07-21T11:39:00.004-04:00

**Waits for the applause to die down**

Twig Heals is a year old, and I'm going to take the lazy route here and post a "look back" blog to celebrate! (Sorry, there's no time to write a shiney new post, I have to leave for work in 15 minutes.)

Without much adieu, here are some of my favorite posts from this past year. I hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I did writing.

5. Grrr! 'Nerf' should be a four letter word...

There have been a lot of tirades on this blog, but my rant about the ICC buff is probably my favorite. I still secretly wish our GM will "accidentally" disable the buff one night to see how we fare, but that's mostly because I'm a bit of a wow massochist. Maybe after we down LK? =D

4. On the hunt: Time-Lost Proto Drake

I obsessed over this rare spawn for months and months, scouring the interwebs for any and all information I could find on it, all in an effort to score me a super sexy flying mount. I never did get to kill it though (not yet anyway), but I did compile all the info I found and posted it on the blog for all to see. My hope is that somebody, somewhere out there, is flying around on a TLPD saying "Thank you, Twig Heals!"

3. To be... Or not. RP

Ok, so RP never really was my thing. There are so many unwritten rules, so much lore to keep straight, and it's so hard to RP duel while an Alliance rogue is chewing your face off. Still, I had a lot of fun coming up with a back story for Beck, and I'm glad I shared it with you all (I learned a ton about RP from your feedback emails.)

2. Exiled: The Gauntlet

One of my favorite nights of WoW came while I was playing my alt Pally, and I wrote about it here. I like to think of it as a story of determination, courage and adventure... though it may have just been about two drunk idiots and a rogue. Either way, I hope you enjoyed it.

1. For Blood and Honor: Razorscale

Every time I read this story I get the same sense of excitement I got when we first downed Razorscale soooo long ago. And every time I read it I remember all the "faces" that were there, and all the personalities, and all the fun we had. This is without a doubt my favorite post on my blog.

Thank you all who've shared in my experiences over this past year (and especially those in game who've been sharing experiences for so much longer). Here's to hoping the next year is atleast as good as the first. =D

~Beck

Shared Topic: When should a healer let someone die?

2010-07-17T01:44:00.010-04:00

Okay, okay, so I'm a little late to the party (it's been a hellaciously long couple of weeks for me) but Ecclesiasticaldisc posed this question on Twisted Nether recently and I feel the urge to put in my two cents.

The question is:

When should a healer let someone die? Where do you draw the line on shifting the priority of someone’s heals down (or refusing to heal them all together)? Is it if they upset you personally? If they are consistently standing in the fire? If they have lame dps? If they aren’t managing their aggro? If they go afk for fifteen minutes in the middle of a boss fight? Is it only when it’s jeopardizing the entire group’s success? I believe there is a point for every healer, but where does the gray area fall?

The short answer: Never.

Here's a quick story for you. Several months back our guildies scraped together a group for the weekly, which happened to be Razorscale. Of the 10 toons in the raid, nine were being operated by warm bodied human beings, while the 10th was a toon belonging to the husband of one of our guildies and was being towed through Ulduar on follow. Just so the husband's toon did not miss out on 5 emblems while he was away at work, his wife logged on to both PCs and both accounts, put her hubby in her seige engine for FL then parked his toon next to the turrets for Razorscale.

Not surprisingly, during the fight the MIA toon took fireball after fireball to the face and even spent some time roasting in flame breath. Completely out of range of heals and offering nothing by way of DPS, I imagine most people would've let the toon die and collect his emblems as a ghost. But not me. I hauled bark halfway across that room every time he took a hit and stood there healing him until he was out of danger.

Having to justify my actions to the raid leader, I made up some BS about how the toon's presence was saving someone else from taking fireballs and "at least he wasn't dropping flame breath in the middle of the room." But to be honest, I made the choice I made because I believe a healer's job is to keep everyone alive no matter what.

If a toon was a jerk to me (and it has happened quite a bit over the years), I would still heal them (and would consider myself an even bigger jerk if I didn't).

If some under geared, under skilled dpser was doing less damage than the tanks, I would still heal them (and be proud that I was able to see them through to the end of the fight).

If a noob was standing in fire or dropping some AoE nastiness on the raid, I would still heal them... or try to at least. (Would I be making my job easier by letting him/her bite the dust? Yes. But easy doesn't make it right.)

My job as a healer is not to decide who lives or dies, or what's best for the raid. My job is to find a way to heal whatever group of toons through whatever raid encounter with as few casualties as possible. If that means paying extra attention to the jerk in the fire doing white damage along with everybody else who has the misfortune of standing next to him/her, then that's my job.

And if you'd rather pass on that kind of challenge to go farm some loot that you're just going to replace in a month... then we don't see eye to eye on what makes this game so much fun to play.

Just my two cents...
~Beck

Back that thang up

2010-07-09T20:09:00.001-04:00

I ended my last blog with "The masses are speaking. Let's find out if anybody at Blizzard is listening." It turns out that they were.

Nethaera announced this morning that Blizzard has decided NOT to require real names on the official forums.

/cheer

I tip my cap to all who campaigned against Blizzard Entertainment's announcement. Your voices were heard and you won one for the little guys.

And a nod of respect also goes out to Blizzard for making the tough/correct choice to reverse their original decision.

Here's to hoping awareness has been raised to just how much of your personal information can be found on the web. And let's keep our fingers crossed that the changes Blizzard is moving forward with will bring about a decrease in trolling/flaming on the offical forums.

Real ID goes to the forums

2010-07-08T01:01:00.008-04:00

"I'm just an average man
With an average life
I work from nine to five,
Hey hell I pay the price
All I want is to be left alone
In my average home
But why do I always feel like
I'm in the twilight zone?

I always feel like
somebody's watching meeee
and I have no privacy..."
~Rockwell

Ah yes, Blizzard's newest announcement has their forum community singing a new tune these days. Soon, you will be required to disclose your Real ID (first and last name) in order to post on the offical forums.

My first reaction... "-_-"

To be honest, I am not an active poster on the offical forums (or any forums for that matter) so the change has little effect on me personally. Thinking ahead, should I ever feel the need to post on the forums (e.g. Blizz decides to rock my world with another "ToL on cooldown" type announcement) this Real ID news would do very little to deter me.

Do I have a common name? No. I've only been able to find one other person in the US who shares my first and last name, so it would not be too difficult to locate me (or him for that matter).

Am I an exhibitionist? No more so than most I suppose. I have a facebook profile. I have a blog that links to it. Clearly I must crave some attention / enjoy exhibiting my RL.

Do I fear the repercussions of connecting my character to my real life self? No. There's nothing I would say in "character" that I would not in person. There is nothing I do game related that would jeopardize my job/life/reputation. The golden rule doesn't stop at login screens. There's little doubt that anybody who had desired to find me/my info would have already done so even before this change takes effect.

So, do I agree with Blizzards announcement? Absolutely not.

I'm not "upset" about this news, because I'm detached from its effects, but it's blatantly obvious to me how terrible a decision this is for those who will be very much affected by it. The logic behind it is shaky at best...

"Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment"

Perhaps. But, if that's all Blizzard has in the "Pros" column, they've obviously neglected to weigh the negatives.

A very one sided debate rages (see here, here, and elsewhere) across the online community, and if there's any justice left on the net, WoWaholics will not be forced to choose between their hobby and their privacy.

The masses are speaking. Let's find out if anybody at Blizzard is listening.

Exiled: The Gauntlet

2010-06-04T15:54:00.041-04:00

Left of the ring, before the first brazier, on the way to plagueworks, the wall of ICC juts outward creating what can only be classified as a nook. This is where Rylus and I find our toons standing and waiting... check that... not standing. A circling Val'kyr made its turn toward us, due momentarily to fly directly over our heads, and our best plan for survival is to... sit down.

My GM, Rylus, and I, now SITTING in a nook, all alone in ICC, take a moment to wonder if this was a mistake. In a few moments we would find out. The whole reason we were here was a mistake to begin with. A guild ICC alt run had ended 90 minutes earlier. In its haste, a piece of loot had been left on Festergut's corpse. More specifically, a piece of MY loot had been left on Festergut's corpse, and I was determined to get it.

I had noticed the piece missing from my bag while purchasing gems in Org mere minutes after the raid disbanded. Quickly I invited Laenicus, one of my oldest guildies, to a group, converted to raid, and hauled tail back into ICC to claim my goods. I let out a sigh of relief as I moused over Festergut and saw a loot bag on his corpse. My gloves were still there! "Yay." But I could not loot them to myself. "Boo."

I was forced to wait. Thirty minutes, one GM ticket, and three rooms of respawned trash later, my guild master was able to get in touch with the only toon who could hand the gloves to me. The loot master. Rylus, using his expansive powers of 'wow'dom, assumed control of the loot master's toon, and joined me in ICC.

The gauntlet was set.

The problem: How to get a shaman through three rooms of trash mobs to loot a boss.

The solution: Improvise.

Dear readers, allow me to take this moment to tell you there may have been a few spirits consumed during this decision making process.

Understandably, our guildies were skeptical of our odds of success. Rylus, on a shaman he had never played before, and myself, on a pally alt who had never been in ICC before this night, did not inspire much faith in our cause. This was the reason our calls for assistance were met with responses like "You're crazy." "Waist of time." "Just open a ticket."

Exiled in ICC, we listened as EVERYONE told us it could not be done... save one.

Pinko, a rogue you may recall from my tales of Ulduar, had spent his night carrying our ICC 10 all the way through plagueworks. It'd only be fitting that he volunteer to rescue our rescue mission. Volunteer he did, and rescue he would. But back to the story.

Slowly, menacingly, the Val'kyr made its way in our direction. Sitting at my desk, I started ducking my head as the Val'kyr grew closer. (Why, I do not know. Why do truck drivers duck when they go under a low bridge? It's just what people do.) Ducking, holding my breath, giggling at the absurdity of the situation, I watched as the Val'kyr flew by without detecting us. "Unbelievable." I thought aloud. "This might actually work."

The first obstacle was cleared, the next awaited, and it was time to enact "The Plan". Our 6 to 8 step plan involved pally bubbles, sprint potions, an ahnk, a DI, and gobs of luck.

It did not work.

The abominations, scientists, and geists proved too much for us to survive. Still, our spirits were high. Attempts 1, 2, and 3 had failed, but now Pinko was on the way and things were looking up for attempt number 4. Our new "The Plan" consisted of 12 to 15 steps, involved basically every pally, shaman, and rogue talent we could imagine, and crazy as it may seem, actually made sense... to us.

Once again sitting in a nook, Rylus and I watched as Pinko stealthed right up to the belly of an abom. We waited as we had waited before, waiting again until it was time to not be waiting anymore. The Val'kyr patrolled by, the geists came into range, and then...

Pinko shot at the circling geists, pulling agg on the aboms, popping evasion and sprinting his rogue booty across the room. The mobs followed. Rylus and I waited for the doorway to clear then hustled up the stairs to the plagueworks' hallway. One by one we aggro'd mad scientists and geists as we ran down the hall. We laughed at Pinko laughing at how far he was kiting those aboms. Our lead on the geists soon shrank to nothing. I bubbled Rylus, dropped consecrate, popped a lay on hands, and died with out-stretched hand as we made the right turn towards Festergut's room. I watched as my GM became slimed, inching in epic slow motion toward the finish with mobs catching him from behind and beating him down. Steps from the door and unable to cast a thing, Rylus willed the loot master's toon across the threshold and into Festergut's domain.

Death. Reset. Ahnk. Loot! (And Pinko still kiting)

The last 4 steps of the 15 step plan were my favorite. =D

Nay sayers be damned. Three toons, exiled in ICC, ran a gauntlet to help a guildie and came out victorious.

My gratitude goes out to those two guildmates who refused to quit. Thank you Pinko! Thank you Rylus!

Note: The GM ticket was closed after 2 and 1/2 hours having never been answered.

Just for fun

2010-05-26T11:06:00.002-04:00

Howdy all! It's been a while since I've posted so I wanted to write a quick blog to let y'all know I'm still alive and kickin'. Truth be told, not a whole lot has been happening in game; although my guild just started raid lockouts for ICC 10, so I should be seeing some new content in the coming weeks. (Lich King here we come?)

In the meantime, I've decided to start up a leveling guild on Lightinghoof called "Brotherhood of the Brew" with one of my alts. I love my raiding guild, but there are times when the drama gets a little too over the top... so I created a little drama free zone for me and my friends to go and level our toons in peace (with a little fun and drinking along the way).

As for this blog, you won't see anymore raid guides (unless "Blood and Honor" moves a little closer to the cutting edge in Cataclysm) but I'll still offer up my two cents on resto druid changes as they come about.

'Til then, be excellent to each other... (<---- cheesy movie reference!) :-P

Why?

2010-04-11T15:59:00.002-04:00

"There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction." ~Winston Churchill

Note to Blizzard: The proposed change to Tree of Life form in Cataclysm is exactly the kind of change that there IS something wrong with.

They say:

"Mechanically, it feels unfair for a druid to have to give up so much offense and utility in order to be just as good at healing as the other classes who are not asked to make that trade."

I say:

The obvious question I have to ask is "Why?" As a raiding tree, if I'm in an encounter where I'm even considering doing some dps, then there is absolutely no reason for me to care about changing out of tree of life form in order to do it.

Taking the obvious question one step further... "Why resto druids?" Boomkins have to change out of form to contribute to heals (other classes are not asked to make that trade). Why change one but not the other?

And, perhaps the most important question... "Why take away our identity?" Why make us the ONLY druid spec that DOESN'T spend all it's time in combat in a single form? Why make us the unwilling druid armor models? Why?

Blizzard doesn't see things my way, and that's fine. Let's talk about ways to address that issue in a way that allows resto druids to keep their identity (and that's what all this hoopla is about, Blizzard... fighting to keep our identity).

You want resto druids to be able to contribute offense and CC without giving up our healing power? Then let us dps and CC while in tree form. Create a very skippable talent in the resto tree that would allow us to do so. Give us the choice! I'm sure there are plenty of PvPers out there who would love that talent... so give it to them without taking away our form. Please?

They say:

"Our feeling is that druids rarely actually get to show off their armor, so it would be nice to have at least one spec that looked like a night elf or tauren (and soon troll or worgen) for most of the time."

I say:

News flash, there are plenty of toons that look like night elfs or taurens. We call them warriors, hunters, shammans and priests (and soon to be paladins and mages). The reason many of us rolled druid is because we DON'T want to look like just another night elf or tauren most of the time.

I would ask you, Blizzard, one more time the obvious question of "Why?" But you already gave me your answer. Because "... it would be nice." (If that isn't the biggest middle finger to trees everywhere...)

Still, fuming as I may be the more I blog about this proposed change (and the "reasons" for it), I have to try to keep a level head and offer constructive (errr annoying) alternatives.

You want to see more druids running around in caster form, bring back the much hated run speed decrease. Force us to do some more shape shifting to avoid AoE in raids. Put increased run speed on druid PvP gear (after all, that is who we're trying to cater to with these changes, correct?), slip it in with another talent in the tree, or just ignore it completely and make us suffer through it. Anything to avoid the alternative.

I just felt the entire resto forest shake their heads at that idea at the same time. But how else can I reply to such a ridiculous proposition from Blizzard ("showing off armor") than with a ridiculouse proposition of my own? I'm willing to endure any manner of annoying/obnoxious druid mechanics to avoid losing Tree of Life form as a passive ability.

They say:

"We hope you enjoyed this preview, and ask that you provide your initial thoughts and feedback on what was presented here."

I say:

Why you gotta be so needy?

2010-02-25T21:15:00.003-05:00

For those of you running daily randoms for your frost emblems, I'm sure you've noticed a trend emerging since the latest patch notes were released. You run your instance (half watching the screen and half doing something else because you're way over geared for these dungeons), you roll through each boss fight in near record time (clicking disenchant on every piece of gear that drops), you down the final boss and toss out your customary "TY for group" in party chat... then you wait for all the rolls before you leave group and take your port back to where ever you came from.

Just a normal day in WotLK heroics, until... you notice some bozo was the ONLY one to click "need" on the frozen orb (AFTER everybody else greeded on it). "Dude... seriously?" Yeah, we all know frozen orbs will be used as currency come patch 3.3.3, and we all know this makes them the only relevant loot in these 5 man dungeons, but what possesses these people to believe they "need" these frozen orbs? What makes them think they "need" them more than everybody else in their party? Do these orb needers know how pathetic I think they are? (If they didn't before they will soon.)

Let's take a look at what these needy frost orb ninjas are so desperate to get their hands on.

•Crusader Orb (6) - Six orbs o' the frozen will get you one crusader orb. Mmmm, k? Triumph badges are so easy to get it's hard to image anyone wanting to grind out orbs for these craftable items (even with the nerf to the mats for those craftables). But hey, who am I to judge. If you'd rather grind on your main to gear out your alt, go nuts (4 donuts) but keep it on the level. K, ninja boys and girls?

•Runed Orb (4) - The low low price of four frosty orbs will get you one shiney new Runed Orb. Go go Ulduar patterns! I'm all for nostalgia armor sets, but com'on... you're not even getting tier gear here. (Three rhyming words in a row... blog bonus points!)

•Eternal Fire - Now we're talking! Straight up trade for a somewhat annoying to grind Eternal Fire. I can just sense all you blacksmiths dusting off your titan steel cooldowns. My server sells these for roughly 8g on AH (with the price likely to drop thanks to all those orb needers.) Is the bad ninja karma really worth it to you?

•Eternal Earth - Slightly less annoying to grind, but still... 1 for 1 trade here. Median AH price on Eternal Earth = 4g. Vendor price for frozen orb = 5g. No economics degrees needed here. You'd probably be losing money by trading in your frozen orbs for these mats.

•Eternal Water/Air/Life/Shadow - You get the picture. One orb = one eternal. Can you imagine people "needing" on eternals? "Lame." Yeah, I feel the same way about these orb whores.

•Frost Lotus - Ahhhh. Here's the culprit. The once nerfed, soon to be buffed, spawn rate of this reagent has driven daisy pickers crazy across azeroth. Whether you're looking to make a buck or simply trying to get your flasks made in a timely manner, one frozen orb for one frost lotus is a great deal. SO... is it okay to essentially steal these valuable commodities from your fellow party members? It sure is. If you're middle name is Ninja. :-p

•Pattern: Frosty Flying Carpet [Tailors Only] (6) - "Don't you dare close your eyes..." For all you Alladin wannabes out there who are thinking "Hey, frozen orbs help me learn stuff for my profession, so I neeeed them." I ask you this... is it OK if I need on every blue that drops in heroic dungeons because the dream shards buy me enchanting patterns? If so, you A. have questionable moral fiber and B. must have brown eyes because you're so full of...

Anyway, the point is this. People who used underhanded tactics to obtain frozen orbs back when they were THE orbs to have were called ninjas. The people who do the same thing now and don't believe they're ninjas are simply lying to themselves. In fact, if you ask me (and nobody did), they are a somewhat more pathetic version of loot ninjas that I like to call "frosty orb whores".

Rant... ended.

Quick question: Rotface

2010-02-18T11:44:00.002-05:00

To insta-cleanse or not to insta-cleanse. That is my question.

Undoubtedly many of you have already cleared Rotface and moved on to bigger and badassier things. So I'm curious to know, how does your raid group handle mutated infection? Do you have it cleansed immediately to remove the -75% healing debuff or do you wait for the infected one to get near the OT before making the ooze drop?

It seems to me, cleansing mutated infection right away makes sense. Granted, dropping the ooze in the middle of melee will increase raid damage, but there really isn't a lot of raid damage to heal otherwise. And it will be easier to keep the infected one alive without that damned 75% decrease to healing debuff... right? I mean, having Mr. or Miss Mutated One running around near the edge, not receiving full heals, and sucking on a 3k dot doesn't make sense in my head.

Still, most of the guides I've read say to wait, and I'm not shy about saying neither way has really worked well for our raid. So, I turn to my faithful reader(s) (gosh I hope I have more than one)...

How do you and your raid handle Rotface's mutated infection?

On the hunt: Time-Lost Proto-Drake

2010-02-16T16:30:00.007-05:00

The target:

Time-Lost Proto-Drake

Known flight paths:

Storm Peaks

Spawn times:
Time-Lost Proto-Drake appears to share spawn timers with Vyragosa, another rare spawn monster in Storm Peaks. There are multiple reports putting the spawn time anywhere from every 6 hours to +1 day for Vyragosa, and a 1 in 16 chance of Time-Lost Proto-Drake spawning in her place.

Camp spot:
Over the Bor's Breath waterfall southeast of Valkyrion village. {TLPD flies roughly 20 to 40 yards above the ground}

Group make-up:
Solo-able at level 80

Addon:
Prat 3.0 - Set whisper sound to chime

Macro:
/tar time
/tar vyragosa
/stopmacro [noexists]
/w YOURNAME >>%t!!<<

Note: There's an addon out there called _npcscan that essentially does the same job as Prat + macro, but does it automatically.

Reagents:
Snowfall lager

The strat:
1. Park your toon over the Bor's Breath waterfall (southwest of Temple of storms and southeast of Valkyrion) and have your macro mapped to a key board key.

2. Make sure your game sounds are enabled and the volumn is turned up so you can hear Prat 3.0 chime when you get a whisper.

3. Find something else to do. You will likely spend hours in that one spot, smashing one keyboard button, and not seeing any results, so watching TV, listening to music, reading, etc... will all help pass the time (and keep you sane). Just remember to keep spamming that macro and to hustle to your pc when that chime goes off.

4. Engage TLPD as quickly as possible. This usually means flying right at it, using an instant cast range ability and then popping your snowfall lager so you don't fall to your death. Once engaged, kill it quickly because there will likely be some other toons (from the other faction) in the area who will not hesitate to gank you and steal your kill.

5. Loot!

The reward:

Reins of the Time-Lost Proto-Drake

My personal time lost:
+32 hours {and counting}

{1st Vyragosa kill at 3:18p server time (Bor's Breath)}
{2nd Vyragosa kill at 7:51p server time (Brunnhildar)}
{3rd Vyragosa kill at 3:13p server time (Bor's Breath)}
{4th Vyragosa kill at 8:22p server time (Bor's Breath)}

Healing on the run: Gunship Battle

2010-02-02T12:02:00.001-05:00

Gunship Battle (Image courtesy of bosskillers.com)

Healing on the enemy ship:

Where to stand -

If you're assigned to heal on the enemy ship, stand on the edge within boarding range, do your best to avoid fire from the big guns, and don't forget to equip your rocket pack (available from the goblin NPC on board).

Note: As of 3.3.1 the rocket pack will shift you out of tree form when used.

What to watch for -

1. Below Zero! When the battle-mages cast this spell, your gunship's cannons will freeze (which means you will no longer be doing damage to the enemy ship). That's the queue for you and your boarding party to hop on over and put those mages out of commission. Be sure to WAIT for your tank to board first or else you'll aggro Muradin/Saurfang.

2. Battle Fury! Battle Fury is a stacking debuff that will increase the damage done to your tank by 10% for each stack. This will make reboarding your own ship a bit tricky as your tank will be taking big damage while you're rocketing through the air. Make sure you have a full set of HoTs on your tank before you jump ship. You should be able to get a swiftmend off in mid air.

Note: Use the enemy portal to reboard your ship whenever it's available. The portal will spawn behind Muradin/Saurfang.

3. Cleave. Inflicts 110% weapon damage on up to three targets in front of Muradin/Saurfang. If anyone other than the tank is being hit by this ability, something is going seriously wrong.

4. Rocket Artillery. - While your ship is firing at the enemy, their cannons will be doing the same. If you see a large targeting circle appear under you while you wait to board... move. You're given plenty of warning so there really is no excuse for getting hit by enemy fire.

5. Enemy Riflemen. - These little buggers will shoot at random targets in their range and you will likely take some gun fire as you're standing on the edge waiting to rocket across. There isn't much you can do about it other than take solice in the fact that they do not hit very hard. If you're targeted and have some time, feel free to move out of their range.

Healing on your own ship:

Where to stand -

If you're assigned to heal on your own ship, stand back from the edge and out of range of enemy fire. Be sure not to stand near the enemy portal when it appears on your deck.

What to watch for -

1. Enemy Portal! - The enemy boarding party will use a portal to arrive on your ship. Pay attention to where it spawns and get far away from it. Also, give your tank some time to gain aggro before you start renewing HoTs. Playing nice with your tank will make this part of the fight much easier to heal.

2. Bladestorm! - This ability inflicts damage on up to 4 targets every second for six seconds. Keep an eye on your melee group and be sure to stay far away as possible from the action.

3. Wounding Strike! - Inflicts 200% weapon damage and reduces all healing done to the target by 25% for 10 seconds. Hopefully only your tank will be hit by these, which will make healing through it rather easy.

4. Ranks. - The longer an enemy unit is allowed to live, the larger the buff they will get from their rank. Every 20 seconds they will gain a rank increasing their damage and attack speed. This means that you're job as heals will get more difficult the longer each fight goes on. Don't allow yourself to get complacent if there is very little damage to heal early on.

Summary -

This fight is one of the most fun in the game. It's typical tank and spank stuff and usually only dangerous when transitioning from ship to ship. Have fun with it!

And Drama was its name-o

2010-01-26T21:31:00.008-05:00

Freshman year of college, my communications prof. told me never to begin a talk with an apology. (He used the word ‘talk’ because “only actors and politicians give speeches”.) Ironically, he would greet us every Tues. and Thurs. morning with “Sorry I’m late…” (Not kidding.)

Immediately after comm. 101 I’d spend an hour and fifteen minutes with my creative writing Prof., who similarly advocated the staunch rules of her trade. “Never begin an essay with a direct quote or a hypothetical” she’d say. I often wondered if I was in her class because of my response to the question “If you could have dinner with any four people…” on my college application… or in spite of it.

Regardless, none of that is relevant to the subject of this post… other than to prove I was paying attention should either one of my former professors read this next line (which was originally going to be the start of this blog).

“I’m sorry, but is a melee weapon ever really a main spec roll for a ranged character?” Those words crackled over vent and may as well have been “Let’s get ready to rumble”! The torrent of expletives, ‘yea buts’, and ‘I nevers’ that followed would have made any school yard proud.

The situation: Frost Giant’s Cleaver dropped after the Gunship Battle in ICC and a PuG hunter out rolled all melee characters for it.

The argument: This one handed ax should go to a melee toon because “To a hunter it’s only stats. To a melee character it’s stats plus most of their damage.”

The rebuttal: “My hunter friend told me to get this ax and he’s top 15 on this server.”

The result: A ‘forget you’ for the hunter and master loot the weapon to the highest melee roll.

The question: Was justice done here?

I ask because I feel a party to said incident by silently believing that PuG hunter would simply toss aside the one hander as soon as a hunter two-hand wep dropped.

As a resto druid, I know very little about melee dps or hunter weapons, so I felt the need to do a little research on the question at hand. (Very little research, as it turns out, because websense has been all up in my grill lately.) From what I’ve seen and read, A. there are very few two-handed stat sticks for Hunters in ICC, B. Dual wielding Frost Giant's Cleaver blows away any level 251 two hander currently available to hunters, and C. It seems the current BiS hunter weapons are in fact dual wielded axes (albeit not the ax in question). Now, it sounds to me like PuG hunter may have gotten the shaft here.

Then again, maybe not. BiS or not, a hunter rolling on melee weapons is a bit like a rogue rolling on bows/cross bows, right? I mean, it IS just stats and probably won't see a lick of use once equipped. The class that actually uses the wep certainly gets a hell of a lot more out of it.

So I'm torn. Part of me believes PuG hunter won a roll for a main spec upgrade but didn't get his loot, which is unfair. The other part thinks PuG hunter should have acquiesced and let the melee wep go to the melee toon... instead of putting my guild on blast in trade (which is never cool, imo).

/Sigh. D.R.A.M.A.

HealBot 3.3.0 (setup 3)

2010-01-24T12:16:00.014-05:00

Welcome to the third (and final) installment of the HealBot 3.3.0 setup guide. Here we will walk through the final three tabs of the HealBot options menu. (A walk through of the General and Spells tabs can be found in Part 1 of this guide, while Part 2 deals exclusively with the Skins tab.)

First up is the Cure tab. It's here that you can setup HealBot to monitor removable debuffs on your party and raid members. This is essential for raiding resto druids, as cleansing poisons and removing curses are an important job to perform. Take a look at my setup below.

Monitor to remove debuffs: Toggles debuff monitoring on and off. This option should be enabled at all times.
Spell to remove debuffs: By entering your cleansing spells here, HB will monitor your raid and alert you (by changing raid bar colors) when a debuff can be removed by one of these spells.
Ignore debuffs: You can set HB to ignore specific debuffs that may not be worth the time it would take to remove them (such as non harmful and short duration debuffs). Checking off 'By class' will ignore things such as mana effect debuffs on classes that use energy or rage, etc...
Custom/New debuff: This option allows HB to notify you of specific non-removable debuffs that you may want to be made aware of in certain boss encounters (such as Ignis' slag pot or Marrowgar's Graveyard bone spike).
Bar colours: Change a raid members bar to this color when affected by a debuff. The bar colors can be changed to your preference.
Debuff warnings: Options to receive warnings other than bar color changes when a raid member is affected by a debuff.

This screen, combined with mapping your cleansing spells to your mouse buttons, make HB a powerful and effective tool for removing debuffs. Like I said earlier, this is essential for all raiding resto druids.

Next up is the Buffs screen. This screen will allow you to monitor your raid buffs and alert you to any group members who may be missing them.

Monitor for missing buffs: Toggles buff monitoring on and off.
Spell to buff: Tell HB which buff to monitor.
Check members: Tell HB which raid members to monitor for missing buffs.
Bar colours: Adjust bar color to your preference.
Show buff before it expires: Tell HB to show your buffs as expired once the time remaining on their duration falls below a certain level. Use the sliders to define when you would like this to occur.

And finally, we come to the Tips tab. Tooltips are very useful when you first start healing with this addon (especially if you're still learning where your spells are mapped). This screen controls what information is displayed on those tool tips. Check it out.

Show tooltips: Enabling this option will show a tooltip whenever you mouse over a raid bar. This tooltip shows you which spells you have mapped to each mouse action.
Constantly update: When this is enabled, the information on the tooltip will continue to update while you stay moused over a raid bar.
Hide tooltip in combat: Choose whether or not to have tooltips appear while you are in combat.
Show target information: Enabling this option will show your target's name, class, spec, location, and health.
Show my buffs: This option will display what buffs you have active and how much time is remaining on those buffs.
Show detailed spell information: Enabling this option will show you information about each spell currently mapped to your mouse buttons... such as the spell's cast time, how much it will heal for (direct spells), how long it will last (heal over time spells) as well as the bonus it receives from your current spell power rating.
- Note: You likely won't have time to look at this information during an encounter, but it is helpful in revealing how your spells are affected by new gear or changes in your build. I recommend disabling this option before combat, however, as this added information does make the tooltip rather large.
Show heal overtime recommendation: HB will recommend which HoT to cast and which mouse button will cast it.
Show predefined combos: Shows you the predefined button combations to enable/disable HB, add/remove raid bars to MyTargets, and add/remove raid bars to the black list.
Position tooltip: Choose where you want your tooltips to appear on your UI.
Opacity: Adjust the opacity of your tooltips.

At the bottom of every option screen you will find 5 buttons.

Info: Displays version info, incoming heal information, as well as addon CPU and comms usage.
ResetHB: Resets HealBot to your last saved settings. (HealBot automatically saves your settings when you close the options menu).
ReloadUI: Reloads your user interface.
Defaults: Returns HB to the default setting
Close: Exits the options menu.

And that, my friends, is probably more than you'll ever need to know about HealBot 3.3.0. I hope you've found this walk through useful, and if you have any questions about HB or this guide feel free to leave a comment or send and email to twigheals@gmail.com.

As always, thanks for reading, and have fun out there!

HealBot 3.3.0 (setup 2)

2010-01-23T12:23:00.015-05:00

Welcome to part 2 of the HealBot 3.3.0 setup guide. Here I will show you how you can adjust the look and feel of your new addon by using the Skins tab from the options menu.

The first order of business is to select which skin you want to start with. There are several options to choose from so check them all out using the test bars to see which skin appeals to you most. (You may also create your own using the "New skin" option.)

Once you have the skin selected, you can begin customizing the skin by using the 8 buttons at the top of the screen. Let's take a look at the General screen first.

Background/Border: You can mouse click on the word background and/or border to adjust the color scheme of your addon.
Lock Position: This options will lock your health bars in place preventing you from accidentally moving them during an encounter.
Anchor: Setting the anchor point from the drop down menu will cause HealBot to grow out from that point.
Close automatically: This option will cause the addon to close on its own when you are out of combat.
Play sound on open: Plays a sound when HealBot opens.
Hide party frames: This option will remove all character portraits and party frames from your UI while HealBot is enabled.
Disable bar when range over 100 yards: HealBot will remove a group member's health bar from the UI if he/she is more than 100 yards away from your character. (This can be useful in fights similar to Thorim)
Monitor aggro: This option allows HealBot to track your group members aggro. It will notify you if a dps'er pulls aggro or is targeted by an add. It's extremely useful in a raid setting.
Highlight active bar: This option will highlight a health bar on your UI when your mouse if hovering over it. It's useful in helping to avoid mis-clicks.
Use fluid bars: HealBot will update the health bars on your UI in a fluid motion. Only consider enabling this setting if you have no performance issues with your PC.
Skin default for: You can set HealBot to use a different skin when you're soloing, in a party, raid group, BG, etc.

Next up is the Healing screen. This is where you will choose how your raid member's health bars will be grouped on your UI. Check it out.

Healing bars: Checking off these boxes will add groups to your UI for things like main tanks, pets, your targets, and even vehicles. Play around with it when deciding what your preferences are.
Target bar: HealBot will add a health bar to your UI for whomever you have targeted. Useful for things like keeping track of Arthas in CoS or paying extra close attention to a marked raid member in the Deathbringer Saurfang encounter.
Alert level: This setting tells HealBot at what percentage hp you would like to be notified that a group member needs heals. The lower the percentage, the more damage a character must take before you are alerted.
Show raid bars for: This option will show raid bars for any character class of your choosing. 'All classes' should be selected when entering any kind of encounter.
Include raid groups: You can choose which raid groups will appear on your HealBot UI. Helpful if you're assigned to heal a certain group, though ultimately it's best to have all raid members appear on your screen.
Sort raid bars by: This option allows you to adjust the order in which the raid bars appear on your UI.
Also sub sort: You can also sort the order in which the raid bars appear in each subcategory.

This next screen controls when you will be alerted to incoming heals from other healers in your raid group. You can adjust the sliders to change the minimum duration of direct, HoT and channelled spells of which you wish to be notified. (See below.)

The Chat screen is next and it affects what information you're broadcasting and to whom. You can choose to notify the entire raid of every spell you are casting (I recommend you don't) or you can choose not to notify anyone at all. The only option I would consider here is notifying the raid of who I am resurrecting (to avoid any waisted battle rez). The choice, as always, is yours.

Once you have your notifications set, its back to customizing the look of your UI. The Headers screen allows you to change the appearance of the group headers on your HealBot screen. You can change header bar and text color, font size, header height and width, or turn off the headers completely. (See below.)

Now we get to the meat and potatoes of the skins menu. The Bars screen is where you affect how your raid bars appear on your UI. Take your time here, as this is where you will set the visual queues you will be reacting from in your raids. Check them out...

Texture: The general appearance of your raid bars. The can be squared, rounded, textured, etc... all based according to your taste.
No. groups per column: This controls how many groups will appear in each column on your UI. Use this to control the layout of your UI.
Height/Width: Adjust the size of each raid bar on your UI. The larger they are, the easier it will be to see things like names, health, current HoTs, etc. However, larger bars will also cover more of the game screen. Use your best judgement.
Row/Column spacer: This affects how much space is between each row and column of your UI.
Enabled/Disabled Opacity: This setting will adjust the opacity of raid bars that are enabled (pulling aggro, needing heals, etc...) or disabled (having enough hp to be above the alert setting). Having a stark contrast between enabled and disabled bars will help you easily see who is in need of heals and who is not.
Incoming heals opacity: Adjust the opacity of the incoming heal notification.
Out of range opacity: Adjust the opacity of all raid members who are out of healing range.
Aggro/Mana bar size: You can choose to have aggro bars and mana bars appear above each raid frame on your UI. This setting will adjust how large or small those bars will appear.
Color bar by: You can choose to have different color raid bars for each class or for each role (ranged, melee, etc...)

After setting up the raid bars to look the way you like, you can change how the text appears on each one of those bars in this next screen.

Color text by class: Each class will have their own colored font on their raid bars.
Show class on bar: You can choose to have each raid bar labeled with each players class via text or an icon.
Show name on bar: Have each player's name appear on their corresponding raid bar.
Double text lines: Have two lines of text appear on each raid bar.
Show health on bar as: These settings allow you to adjust if and how a players health appears on their corresponding raid bar.
Text alignment: Adjust where the text appears on each raid bar.
Font/Size/Color: Change the font on each raid bar.

And last, but certainly not least, is the Icon screen. Resto druids love this screen because it allows us to display our pre-existing HoTs on each raid bar and how much time they have left on their duration. Take a look...

Show HoT icons: Toggle between showing and hiding your HoT icons on each raid bar.
Show debuff icon: Toggle between showing and hiding a debuff icon on the raid bars for any raid members who are afflicted. (Useful when 'count' is enabled under the 'show icon text' option as you will be able to see all stackable poisons and how many ticks of abolish poison you will need to cure it.)
Show Raid icon: Will dispaly a skull, circle, star, etc... on the raid bar of any toon who is tagged with a raid icon. Very helpful when used with deadly boss mods.
Icon position: Controls where your icons will appear on the raid bars.
Show icon text: Allows HealBot to display how much time is remaining on a spell (or debuff) as well as the number of stacks each spell (or debuff) has.
Icon/Icon text scale: Adjust the size of each icon and their text.
Druid options: This option allows you to control which helpful spells will appear as an icon on your raid bars.

Okay, time to take a break. If you've made it this far then your addon is fully customized and ready to go. Congratulations! However, I promise you that you'll want to come back for Part 3 of the HealBot 3.3.0 setup, because that is where we'll discover HealBot's version of decursive. :-D

See you soon.

HealBot 3.3.0 (setup 1)

2010-01-22T21:52:00.034-05:00

Still believed by most to be the easiest healing addon to use "out of the box", HealBot 3.3.0 is a must have for any new raiding resto druid. This guide will walk you through the HealBot setup screens one by one and hopefully help you understand and customize your shiny new addon. If you don't have HealBot 3.3.0 installed yet, you can download it here.

Once you locate your healbot options button on your minimap, clicking on it will bring you to the screen below. This is the General tab of the HealBot options menu where you can control how you interact with HealBot from your UI (user interface). Have a look.

Most of the options here are self explanatory, but I've compiled a list of what they do so that there's no confusion. Feel free to play around with this tab if you like, however the default settings work perfectly well (which is part of the appeal to HealBot).

Disable HealBot: Disable all events and hide the bars. (This is the off switch)
Show minimap button: Display or hidethe HealBot icon on your minimap. Hold down right click to move.

Hide option button: Display or hide the option button on your HealBot frame.

Right click opens options: Right clicking on your HealBot frame will open the options screen. I recommend disabling this option because you will likely have a healing spell mapped to your right mouse click and you do not want your options screen popping up accidentally during an encounter.

Enable LibQuickHealth: LibQuickHealth is a mod that allows your addon to use combat log events and information to adjust the character's hp values on your healing addon faster than the server normally would.

Use CPU profiler (Addons CPU usage info): Enabling this option allows HealBot to monitor how much processing power your addons are using. You may want to enable this option if you're pushing the limits of your CPU's capabilities.

Range check frequency: This controls how often HealBot will do a range check on your raid. The lower the setting the faster you will know if someone moved out of your range.

Test bars on/off: This button will show or hide test bars on your UI. I suggest turning the test bars on during the setup process so you can see how each change in options you make will affect the look of the healbot interface on your screen (see test bar image above).

Number of MyTargets: Allows you to control of number of MyTargets you show on your healbot interface. MyTargets allow you to chose specific characters in your party/raid to keep a closer eye on (by grouping them together). Ctrl+Alt+Right click on a health bar to toggle a character to and from your MyTargets group.

Configure classes for: This allows you to choose which character classes healbot will consider ranged, melee, healers, or custom in the buffs tab. (This option is more useful for classes with more complicated buff assignments)

Now that you have the basics taken care of, it's time to customize the addon to fit your healing style. In the Spells tab you will map all of your helpful spells to your mouse buttons. It's this functionality (along with the organization of your raid frames) that make healing addons a must have for raiding druids. All of your heals will soon be a single mouse click away, and its here (in the second tab) that you decide which buttons to map your spells to.

You'll notice at the top of this tab that you can have HealBot enabled all the time or only during combat (drop down image). I recommend having it enabled at all times so that you grow used to the addon and where your spells are mapped. The biggest obstacle you'll face with HealBot is learning its new method of casting.

Immediately below the first drop down menu is where you will toggle between options screens for your left, middle, and right mouse buttons (as you'll see in the drop down image, you can map up to ten buttons if your mouse supports it).

Note: You may choose to stick with HealBot's default settings here and simply get used to it's default mapping. However, I recommend playing around with it and discovering what mappings work best for your healing style.

As you see above (image) you will be using shift, ctrl, and alt along with your mouse clicks to cast your various spells. For example, under the 'left' menu in the 'alt+click' field I have entered Regrowth. This means when I mouse over one of the health bars on my UI, I have to hold down the 'Alt' key and use the left mouse button in order to cast Regrowth on that target. (Or put more simply, alt+left click = Regrowth.)

If I change the menu from 'left' to 'middle' I can enter a different spell, such as Lifebloom, in the 'alt+click' field and that will make alt+middle click = Lifebloom. The process is repeated for every combination of shift, alt, or ctrl + left, middle, or right click (12 spells total).

This may all seem complicated on paper, but once your spells are mapped, casting them in this method will become instinctive.

Some other options available on this screen are as follows:

Auto Target: You will automatically target the character you are casting a certain spell on, bringing up their character portrait at the top of your game screen (if you have not disabled them).

Auto Trinket: If you are wearing trinkets (such as Talisman of Resurgence) that have a 'use' ability that you would like to activate before the casting of a certain spell, you can check off the trinket slot you have it equipped in next to the spell you would like to have activate it and it will be triggered automatically.

Cast when button is: You can choose to have your spell casts occur when your mouse button is pressed or when it is released... whichever is your preference.

Smart cast when out of combat: This option allows HealBot to choose the spell to cast on a target when you are out of combat. If someone in your raid has a debuff or needs to be resurrected, simply pressing left click will have HealBot perform the appropriate action.

Avoid accidental PVP: Checking off this option will have HealBot alert you if casting a helpful spell on one of your group members will cause you to be flagged for PVP.

That concludes part 1 of the HealBot 3.3.0 setup. At this point you are more than ready to start healing with your addon. All of your spells are now at your finger tips, so get out there and practice using it. I promise you it won't take long for you to get accustomed to your button mappings.

Part 2 of the HealBot 3.3.0 setup will focus on altering how the addon looks and what information it portrays on the health bars, so stay tuned.

Resto Druid Haste "Cap"

2010-01-21T16:15:00.006-05:00

Back in June I blogged about GotE and how I felt it may not be worth the 5 talent points it requires. My opinions left me alone in the woods, so to speak, as most everybody else was singing the praises of the resto druid haste “cap”. Oh well… C’est la vie… to each his own… it takes different strokes… etc... etc... Stubbornly, my build left GotE on the cutting room floor and life went on (as it tends to do).

Then, something wonderful happened. Patch 3.3 came along, and with it came a change to GotE! Now, instead of only reducing the GCD on 3 measly spells, Gift of the Earthmother increases our haste rating by up to 10% on ALL casts! That’s pretty sweet, if you ask me… although nobody did. With this patch I changed my build, spent my 5 talent points, and joined the ranks of druids everywhere singing the praises of the Earthmother’s generous gift… or so I thought.

Surfing the interwebs, dropping in to see my favorite bloggers, and popping over to elitist jerks to check out the math, I started to notice a trend. People weren’t as excited about the change as I was… not even close. The word ‘nerf’ actually showed up a few times in the same sentence as GotE, and instinctively my head shook out the question “why?” How could a straight haste buff be worse than a silly little GCD cooldown on three spells?

The culprit was that damned haste “cap” everybody was so in love with pre-3.3. It had gone up… way up… to over 800 to be exact (including raid buffs). Now, I’m not one to take pleasure in other people’s suffering, but, when I saw the number ‘856’, part of me smiled and thought “woo hoo the haste cap is out of reach so I won’t have to hear about it anymore.”

Reality check. Not only was the haste cap very much in reach, but people actually started gemming for it… even re-speccing for it! Has the world gone crazy?

In a word, yes… at least in my opinion (which will most certainly land me in the minority again). Celestial Focus, the talent which gives 3% more haste to a boomkin (lowering the haste cap to 735 for resto druids), is 18 points deep in the balance tree. That means to get it, we must take at least 4 points out of our current builds (I would have to move 7 points) and give up some VERY good talents in the resto tree (talents like Living Seed and Empowered Touch) in the process. Needless to say, it’s quite the endeavor to reach the haste “cap” and I can’t help but believe that it’s not really worth it.

Look at it this way, giving up spell power and crit (if you’re gemming for haste) and knocking down the healing power of Nourish and Healing Touch (two spells you likely use in dire situations and should want to heal as big as possible) just to be able to toss a Rejuv on two more toons before your first Rejuv wears off seems ludicrous to me.

I personally have no problem HoTing up an entire 10 man or half of a 25 with my current haste rating (610). More haste would obviously have a positive affect on my casting speed, but it would also have a negative affect on my casting power where it’s need most (single target damage spikes).

I'm not saying haste is bad (it's not). I'm not sayin crit is better (it isn't). What I am saying is you should not stack haste at the expense of your build and your other stats. If you have the choice between two pieces of gear and the decision boils down to haste vs. crit THEN you can talk about "caps", GCDs, and such. But if you're standing in Dal, looking at your character screen trying to figure out if you have enough gem slots to get your haste rating over 700, you need to re-evaluate your stat priorities.

That's right woodchuck chuckers it's... Groundhog Day!

2010-01-20T13:47:00.012-05:00

MMO-Champion is reporting that players will finally have their chance to go toe to toe with the Lich King on Groundhog Day, Feb 2nd!

Rumors that his enrage ability involves summoning Bill Murray to tell you bad joke after bad joke until you're forced to reset your PC and start the fight over... are unconfirmed.

With the end approaching rapidly, I find myself making some mental notes on what I want to accomplish with the down time before Cataclysm hits (whenever that will be)...

I never did get around to finishing all of the classic and BC raids. I'm pretty sure there are some quests in Org I'll want to finish before it goes kaput. I'd love to repair my cartel rep so I can go fishing in Booty Bay again. Etc...

How about you? I know I'm putting the cart before the horse here, but what's on your to-do list after you finish walking up and down Arthas' backside?

Healing on the run: Festergut

2010-01-19T13:55:00.012-05:00

Festergut

Where to stand –

Everyone except for ranged dps will stack together in melee range INCLUDING healers.

What to watch for –

1. Vile Gas! – This nasty little spell will cause its target to vomit uncontrollably (stunning them) and inflict a good amount of damage to anyone in the area. Festergut will cast this on 3 ranged targets (8 in 25 man). If there are not 3 (or 8) ranged targets to cast it on, the boss will cast this on the melee group, essentially wiping the raid. This spell makes raid healing extremely important. Make sure you’re giving constant attention to your ranged dps in this fight. If one of your ranged dps dies either a melee player or a healer will have to run out to take their place, which will make this fight much more difficult to win.

2. Enrage timer! – Festergut has a 5 minute enrage timer. Unlike other enrages, you won’t have an extra few seconds to dps while the boss runs around killing everybody one at a time. Festerguts enrage hits everyone at the same time, so you have exactly 5 minutes to dps him down or it’s a wipe. This is the reason why keeping everyone alive is so important. They call this fight a “dps check”, but healers will have to be on the ball as well if you’re going to get past this boss.

3. Pungent Blight! – After Festergut has cast three sets of gas spores (see below) he will cast pungent blight. This spell hits for 50k hp and is only survivable if you have the buff from the gas spores. Three stacks of inoculate will reduce the damage taken by 75%, resulting in a loss of roughly 12k hp to everyone in raid. You best get those HoTs rolling before this spell is cast.

4. Gas Spores. – The boss will cast 2 gas spores (3 in 25 man) on random characters throughout the fight. When they explode, everyone in range will gain a stacking buff called inoculate which increases resistance to blight (reducing the damage taken by 25% per stack). The exploding spores will do a little damage to all in range, but it’s not anything to worry about. What you do need to worry about is whether or not everyone is getting the buff. If both (or all three) spores are cast on the melee group then someone will have to bring their spore out to the ranged group and vice versa.

5. Gaseous Blight. – During this fight a cloud of gas fills the room doing damage to your entire raid. The damage done will decrease by 1/3 each time Festergut inhales the gas, but doing so will cause him to grow and do 30% more damage. After he inhales 3 times the gas will be released back into the room and the process will repeat. This mechanic causes an interesting shift in focus from raid to tank healing and back again. Regardless of who you are assigned to heal, pay attention to how much gas is in the room and adjust your healing priorities appropriately.

6. Gastric Bloat. - Festergut will cast this stackable debuff on the tank every 15 seconds causing 10k damage but also increasing the tank's damage done by 10%. At nine stacks the OT will taunt off or else the MT will explode (at 10 stacks). Watch for the tank swap and be prepared to heal the proper target.

Summary: As far as mechanics go, this is a simple “tank and spank” type of encounter with very little reason to ever move your character. This makes Festergut the easiest boss in the plagueworks, as long as you have the dps to beat the enrage timer. If you feel that you don’t have the numbers to beat it, give Rotface a try. The mechanics of his fight are much more complicated, but solid raid coordination can make up for a lack of burst dps.

Healing on the run: Deathbringer Saurfang

2010-01-18T19:43:00.015-05:00

Deathbringer Saurfang

Where to stand – You should stay at max range for this fight. Do your best not to stand within 10 yards of another toon.

What to watch for –

1. Mark of the Fallen Champion! – Saurfang will cast this debuff on a random character when his blood power bar is filled. The affected character will take roughly 6k damage every time Saurfang does a melee attack throughout the remainder of the fight. Also, if the affected player dies this mark will heal Saurfang for 5% of this total health. The affect lasts through death, so if you battle rez the affected player and he/she dies again the boss will gain another 5% health. This ability is the reason your raid will work so hard to limit how much blood power the boss generates. If too many of these marks are cast, surviving this fight will eventually become impossible. Needless to say, healing a character with this debuff is a priority. DO NOT rez someone who has this mark.

2. Blood beasts! – These adds spawn next to the boss throughout the encounter (two at a time). Tanks will NOT pick these adds up because every time they land a melee attack Saurfang will gain Blood Power. For that reason, your ranged dps will aggro and then kite these beasts until they are killed. Use caution when these adds first spawn, as you will likely gain aggro before your dps can. Staying at max range will give your dps time to pull the beasts off you before they’re able to do damage. Also, don’t be afraid to help with crowd control (stomp/roots) if it looks like one of your kiters could use it.

3. Frenzy! - At 30% hp Saurfang will frenzy causing him to attack faster and generate blood power faster as well. If you can get the boss to frenzy before he’s able to cast his first mark, you’re raid is in great shape. If there’s already a mark on one of your raid members, however, your healers will have to coordinate who heals the first mark and who will heal the next. Saurfang’s frenzy is where healers have to step up, so if you were helping with CC, stop and get ready to heal big for the remainder of the fight. Remember that your priority is to keep players affected with mark of the fallen champion alive.

4. Rune of Blood. – The boss will leech 5k to 6k health and heal for 5 times that amount every time the affected target is hit with a melee attack. This ability is the reason your tanks will be taunting off one another. If you’re tank healing, pay attention to when this is cast so you’ll know when exactly Saurfang will be changing targets.

5. Boiling Blood. – This attack will make up the majority of your raid healing responsibilities (until the first MofFC is cast). Saurfang will cast this DoT on a random toon throughout the fight. It does a fair amount of damage (5k) every 3 seconds for 15 seconds and each tick gives blood power to the boss. It’s not difficult to heal through, although you will want to pay extra attention if it’s cast on one of your kiters (as they may also be taking some damage from blood beasts). If you’re assigned to raid heals, HoT up whoever has this DoT and then feel free to help your kiters CC those damn blood beasts.

Summary:

This fight is actually easier on 25 man than it is on 10 man, imo. With more dps to attack and CC blood beasts, the boss generates blood power slower in 25 man and therefore casts fewer marks. On 10 man, my guild chooses to two heal this fight so that we have an extra dps to help with blood beasts. It works well for us, and you may want to attempt it if your raids are not having much success.

Grrr! 'Nerf' should be a four letter word...

2010-01-15T15:55:00.009-05:00

It doesn't seem so long ago when I was just a noobish, "what do you mean the max level wasn't always 70?", kitty feral druid, who had no idea what a 'healbot' was or how to use it. My first "raid" build consisted of EVERY talent in the resto tree. My UI was exactly the same as it was when I first installed the game out of the box. And, if someone took a screen shot of my first visit to Kara, you could easily recognize me as the silly Tauren in full Gladiator gear.

In other words, I'm by no means a veteran of this game or a card carrying pre-BC player. So forgive me if I'm out of line for saying this, but... "Why the hell does Blizzard want to make this game so damn easy all of a sudden?"

When Naxx came out, we had to bang our heads against it for a while before we were able to clear it in one night. If you wanted gear upgrades, guess what... you had to RAID! You had to raid in whatever you had on and hope that you walked away with a loot drop.

Then there was Ulduar. Running through Ulduar was a little bit easier because of the emblem system. But, the only way to get emblems was to RAID! You could supplement your gear pretty nicely by farming Naxx for emblems, but even in full Naxx, Ulduar was still a challenge for most of us. The only way to get better was to run Ulduar and hope to get far enough to earn a loot drop... or at least enough emblems to buy yourself a gear upgrade.

After that... all hell broke loose. The emblems system turned into easy mode. If you wanted upgrades, you didn't have to worry about banging your head against Trial of the Crusader or even farming Ulduar if you didn't want to. You could simply take a new level 80 toon, farm regular Trial of the Champion and any level 80 instance in the game, and inside of a week you'd be just as geared as those toons who progressed through Ulduar the hard way.

Ok, ok, so you've heard this rant before, and you're probably thinking... "So, the emblem system makes gearing up too easy. Get over it, Beck." I am over it. What bothers me is that even with gear being handed out like fliers on the Las Vegas strip, Blizzard still feels the need to "nerf" new content almost immediately after they release it. What's up with that?

The best part of this game, imo, is going into an instance and having to figure out 1. why you wiped and 2. how to fix it so it doesn't happen again. And, if for some reason you can't figure out a way to down a boss in the first week, you get to farm some emblems, gear up a little, and take another crack at it later. The challenge is what makes this game fun... at least for me.

So why does Blizzard feel the need to take that away from us? Why can't they force us to progress instead of bringing the instance down to our level? Why can't it be the way it used to be? Or, at least the way I imagine it used to be.

In my guild's 10 man ICC last night I heard that god awful word again (nerf) and I wanted to find a Blizzard employee to slap! (Well, not so much wanting to slap as to shake a stern finger at.) Rumor has it that ICC will be getting another nerf next week. So, before my guild even gets a look at Plagueworks (14 days after it came out) they're going to nerf it?

FUBAR.

Healing on the run: Lady Deathwhisper

2010-01-15T14:18:00.006-05:00

Lady Deathwhisper

Phase 1:

Where to stand - Adds will be entering from the left and right sides of the room, so setting up shop in the middle of the room is a good idea.

What to watch for -

1. Death and Decay! - Lady Deathwhisper will toss this AoE spell at the feet of a random toon throughout the fight. This green rune is a little bit smaller than the circles of death you find in Ulduar: Iron Council, but they're still fairly large and not something you want to take your time moving out of. Death and Decay ticks for roughly 4500 dmg per second. The usual drill applies here... move first, cast second.

2. Adds! - Six adds of two different types will spawn at regular intervals throughout phase 1. One type (cult adherents) will be attacked by melee, the other type (cult fanatics) will be attack by ranged. Shortly after death, both types will reanimate and will have to be killed again. Luckily, picking up, separating, switching to and from these adds is none of the healers' concern. All you have to worry about is not getting too close to them and not gaining aggro when they first spawn or reanimate.

Note: If you'd like to see a list of all their abilities check out mmo-champion.com.

3. Shadow Bolt! - This nasty little spell can hit for over 10k dmg, so be ready to heal some hefty damage spikes.

4. Dominate Mind! (25 man only) - Lady Death will mind control one player, increasing their damage by 200% and healing by 500%. Feel free to CC one of your buddies if you see that their mind has been taken over.

5. Curse of Torpor. - This curse will add 15 seconds to the cooldowns used by anyone afflicted with it. In the grand scheme of things this curse isn't much to worry about, but still, it can (and should) be removed with your remove curse spell whenever possible.

Phase 2:

Where to stand - The middle of the room is still a good place to be as long as there's no Death and Decay under your feet.

What to watch for -

1. Shadow Bolt! - This spell is a whole lot worse in phase 2 than it was in phase 1. Reportedly it can hit for upwards of 40k, so watch out! The good news is that it's a two second cast that can be kicked. As long as your tanks and melee are on the ball, you should never see one of these cast in phase 2.

2. Death and Decay! - Little Miss Death will still cast her DnD during phase 2, so stay on your toes. It's the exact same spell as in phase 1.

3. Dominate Mind! (25 man only) - In phase 2, Deathwhisper can mind control up to three players. The damage and healing bonuses are the same as in phase 1, and CC will be even more important during phase 2.

4. Vengeful Shades! - The boss will run around the room pulling Vengeful shades from the bodies of fallen cultists. These shades will explode if they catch up to their target, so feel free to take a page from Monty Python and "Run away! Run away!"

Summary:

This fight is quite a bit easier than Lord Marrowgar, and not very healer intensive. Stay out of DnD and far away from adds, and you should have no trouble at all healing through this.

Healing on the run: Lord Marrowgar

2010-01-14T13:33:00.014-05:00

Lord Marrowgar

Phase 1:

Where to stand - Position yourself directly behind a melee toon (non-tank of course) so that they can easily turn and save you when you get bone spiked. Marrowgar has a huge hit box, so you should still end up pretty far from the center of the room.

What to watch for -

1. Coldflame! - Anytime you see the word 'flame' in a boss ability, it's pretty much a given that I'm going to tell you not to stand in it. This time, however, I'm taking it one step further... DON'T GET HIT BY IT. Coldflame is a talent that you will see coming... literally. It starts out directly under the boss and moves in a straight line toward it's target. The flame itself is no more than 5 yards wide, so when you see one coming in your direction, simply step to your left or right to avoid it. There's no reason to get hit by it, but even if you do it won't kill you unless you stand in it. SO DON'T STAND IN IT.

2. Bone Spike Graveyard! - Lord Marrowgar will cast a couple of these at regular intervals throughout the fight. The attack itself is a bone spike (hence the name) that comes out from the ground directly under its target and raises that target in the air dealing damage and preventing any action. It can't be avoided and must be dps'd down for the affect to be removed. Anyone who is impaled by this will need a good amount of heals until they are free from the spike. If you happen to be impaled, there's nothing you can do but call out for help in vent. Positioning yourself directly behind a melee toon will make life easier for everyone (and get you free from the spell faster).

3. Saber Lash. - This is Marrowgar's main dps ability and it's the reason your tanks will be stacking during this fight. You'll likely here people reference the bear boss from Zul'Aman when talking about this cleave, and that's because it's the same mechanic. The damage from the attack will be shared by your tanks as long as they stay stacked, so it won't be a problem for you to heal. If, however, your tanks are not stacked, the full force of this cleave will hit one target for huge amounts of damage. So keep your eyes open and be ready to heal big if a tank has to face Saber Lash alone.

Phase 2: Air phase

Where to stand - In this phase you should stand your ground as much as possible. Your raid should know they only need to move if a Coldflame is coming at them.

What to watch for -

1. Coldflame! - Yes, this is the same coldflame he casts in phase 1. However, during phase two Marrowgar will be casting this while mobile, which means they will be coming at you from different directions, criss crossing each other, and coming more often than in phase 1. Still, you will see them coming at you and as always, don't stand in them.

2. Bone Storm. - This ability is basically a whirlwind attack that lasts the duration of phase 2. While spinning and flying around Marrowgar cannot be taunted, so anyone can be hit by bone storm. The good news is that bone storm can be easily healed through, so there's no need to try and run away from it. Stand your ground if the boss comes at you with this attack. You should only have to move when he drops coldflame on you.

3. Kiters. - More dangerous than the Bone Storm attack are the toons who feel compelled to run from it. Running from this whirlwind will usually put a toon out of healing range. So while bone storm is easy to heal through, it can't be survived without any heals at all. Be ready to chase after any running fools.

4. End of phase 2. - Lord Marrowgar will target 4 toons with his whirlwind. After he attacks the 4th toon, he will stop spinning, wipe aggro, and begin phase 1 again. Any aggro wipe makes a fight harder, but when you add that to the fact that Marrowgar can drop aggro at any spot in the room, it makes this transition very dangerous for all in raid. Be mindful of where your tanks are so you don't end up in front of the boss after the phase ends. And do your best not to gain aggro while your tanks work to pick up the boss.

Summary:

This fight is mostly a dps fight. Watch those coldflames and call out right away if you're bone spiked. If your dps is on the ball, raid healing will be very easy, so feel free to help out the tank heals if things are going well.

To be. Or not... RP.

2010-01-13T02:34:00.004-05:00

So, I figured I'd give role playing a serious go to see how I like it. I haven't yet stepped foot into the realm of RP, but I have enjoyed writting up a back story for my character. Please, let me know what you think (and feel free to point out any gross RP mistakes I may be committing).

Dusk falls on the Scalemane tribe with the sound of crackling fires and the smell of cooking fish. Atop a steep hill, long shadows and large silhouettes dance across bright canvas tents that glow red from the setting sun. From one such tent, two Tauren boys race recklessly down hill toward a glassy lake.

“Slow down…” the younger, much smaller boy yells after his older brother, “… you’ll break it!”

“Nonsense, Beck…” the elder boy replies, “you just can’t keep up.”

Those words were uttered often by Torgra to his younger brother, always with the intent to elicit a response. And Beck, stubborn and proud as they come, always obliged. Instantly Beck’s strides quickened down the hill… and then widened… and then gained momentum too great to control. As Torg slowed to a stop at the glassy lake’s edge, Beck came stumbling, head first, into it.

“You know, you’re going to scare off all the fish.” Torg declared as he began to bait the shiny new fisherman's pole he had carried securely down the hill.

Without a response, Beck sludged back onto the bank refusing to shake off the water he was dripping wet with.

Mere minutes passed before the now dryer young Tauren began poking his brother for a chance to wield the shiny new fisherman's pole. Gradually, pokes grew into grabs, and grabs into lunges, until a tug of war broke out on the lake’s edge. The elder Tauren took joy in jerking his smaller brother back and forth violently to his left and right, though Beck, to his credit, never loosened his grip.

Atop the hill, Torrag Scalemane grew tired of the ruckus his two boys were causing down by the fishing hole. With one echoing grunt he froze them both in their place, then made his way down to them. The brothers held their heads low as their father approached. Beck quickly released his grip on the pole and Torgra silently relinquished it to his father’s outstretched hand. Beck’s head lowered further as Torrag took a knee in front of him.

“You are very young, my son. Trust that the Earthmother would not have given you the heart of a giant had she not intended you to have the body to go with it. Have faith.”

Rising to his feet, Chief Scalemane now stood over his eldest son.

“Torgra, son of Torrag, you may soon have the strength to move mountains. I pray you will one day grow wise enough to know better than to try."

At that, the sun sizzled as it set into the lake’s horizon. With it came the dark of night and the menacing sound of flaming arrows ripping through canvas!

Screams rained down from atop the steep hill as a score of Centaur laid siege to the encampment. Immediately, Chief Scalemane pulled close his two sons.

“Beck, take this pole and swim as far out into the lake as you can. Don’t look back, just swim.”

Unsheathing his sword, he spoke again “Torg, take my sword and stay on my heals. We make our stand at the grand tent.”

Turning back to glare at his tribe's burning camp, Torrag Scalemane spoke for the final time.

“Sons, heed my word.”

A dive in the water did little to dull the volume of his father’s battle shout. Beck, once again headlong into the lake, swam harder and faster than he ever had. In the back of his mind he wondered where this speed had been during the many races he had against his elder brother in this very lake. With each stroke he listened more intently for sounds coming from camp. With each stroke the number of shouts deminished, until there were none. He heard nothing but the sounds of his swimming for many long moments, and dared not disobey his father by looking back. Suddenly...

-Splash-

Something much larger than the little Tauren entered the water behind him. No victory drums had been sounded, no calls from the chief had been heard. Beck was certain a Centaur had come into the lake after him, and fear commanded that his already burning muscles work faster, harder to escape.

Several more moments passed and the noise from behind was quickly closing the gap. The exhausted young Tauren was now fighting more to stay afloat than he was to flee his pursuer. Shorter strokes did less to raise his head above water. Longer pauses sent him further beneath the surface. His pursuer was practically on top of him now, and Beck had no where to go but down.

Mustering all the strength he had left, the youngest Scalemane lifted his head above water to draw in one last breath, then he let the lake's pull take him. No sooner had he submerged than was his pursuer upon him. Beck readied himself for the sting of a spear, but instead felt the grip of a familiar hand on the back of his mane.

Torg lifted Beck's head above water and commaned him to "Swim."

Confused and exhausted, Beck glared up at his brother.

"Torg? How? What happend to father?"

"Swim." the elder Tauren again commanded.

"Torg!?" Beck shouted, again slowly sinking below the surface. "What happ...!"

The lake choked off his words as water filled his lungs. Torg was losing the battle to keep them both affloat. The brothers Scalemane locked gazes for a moment before... Torg let slip his grip.

As he sank deep into the lake, Beck saw his brother swimming away, still holding the sword handed to him by their father. Sinking further, he looked with a smile at his own hand still wrapped around the shiny new fisherman's pole. "Heed my word." he heard his father's voice ring in his head. "Have faith."

On the far shore, Torg looked back to see the fires of his tribe's camp slowly burning themselves out. No more silhouettes could be seen atop the hill. Searching for a sign of his brother, Torg turned his eyes to the once again glassy lake but saw nothing save for his own guilt ridden reflection. "Heed my word." he heard his father's voice ring in his head. And with that, Torg turned to make his way down the long road toward the Barrens.

--------

Moonlight danced as new ripples formed on the surface of the lake. On it's edge, at the base of the hill, a young Tauren sludged onto the bank refusing to shake off the water he is dripping wet with. In his hand, a shiny new fisherman's pole that once belonged to his father.

First we try, then we trust...

2010-01-11T14:48:00.008-05:00

I'm certain most, if not all, of us have been there... The place where we are given a healing assignment (tank or raid) and we notice some toon, who is some other healer's responsibility, is dangerously low on health. Almost instinctively we pop a Natures Swiftness + Healing Touch and then go about our business healing our assignment, feeling pretty good that we just saved a life... Or did we?

What would happen, do you think, if we never popped that NS+HT heal? Is that toon truly doomed? Was there a big heal from another healer a half second away from being cast? Did we just waste that heal and the mana that goes along with it? What if our big instant heals were on cool down and we had to spam a nourish or three... was someone else healing our assignment while we took a minute to "save a life"?

These are all important questions I'm sure we've all asked ourselves when going "off assignment" during our raids... especially when raiding with healers we're not familiar with.

So what, then, do we do when our fellow healer(s) refuse to trust us to do our jobs? How do we cope when someone else pays as much attention to our assignment as they do to their own? How do we anticipate who he/she is not healing at any given moment so that we can cover them while they're busy "covering" us?

I ask, because this is exactly the dilemma my long time guildie/healing buddy is facing in our ICC guild runs.

There's been a changing of the guard in my guild, so to speak, as I've been on hiatus from our weekly raids and a new resto druid has stepped up to take my place. Naturally, there needs to be some trust building between my priest friend and the new tree, however things are progressing very slowly in that regard.

New tree is over healing the OT, when assigned to raid heals, and that both frustrates and annoys my priest friend. Priest spends a great amount of mana covering raid while tree goes to town on the OT, all the while never certain when tree will decide to stop heals on OT and go back to raid.

In defense of tree, she is single target specc'd (i.e. glyphed and talented to make HT her main heal) and better suited for tank healing than raid healing. She's assigned to raid heals because that's the role that needs filling, but she remains married to her build (like so many of us are) because that's what fits her healing style best.

A quote from tree when I asked if she'd consider giving a raid healing build a try... "ICC isn't exactly the place to be trying out a whole new healing style, is it?"

Good point, though to steal a quote from Hillel the Elder in response... "If not now, when?"

So what do you all think? My guild feels a disc priest is best suited to tank heal these fights, so having the two swap roles is likely out of the question. Is this a case of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, or is it simply a lack of trust that's preventing our healers from reaching their potential?

Quick thoughts on patch 3.3

2009-12-14T10:46:00.007-05:00

First and foremost, GotE is now a must have talent, imo. The 10% boost to haste is noticeable and necessary for tank and raid healing alike. Go out and get it. Got it? Good.

Secondly, the new looking for group dungeon and raid system seems to have awoken the spirit of the ninja in many previously honest players. The arrival of cross-realm grouping has marked the departure of the only real deterrent for loot ninja’s, which is (err… was) public ridicule. You can whine and complain all you like in your trade chat, but there's no stopping Mr. or Mrs. Ninja from quietly returning to their realm with your loot in tow. My recommendation, unless you are simply farming emblems, is to avoid the nice new LFG utility (and it is indeed nice) whenever possible.

And finally, it seems that two sects have formed on my realm in regards to the first wing of ICC (not counting the hard core bunch). One is the adventurous souls who are willing to bang their head against the instance, gear score be damned, hoping to learn the fights and ultimately counting on skill to get them through. The other being the GS obsessed bunch who've read somewhere that a 5.1k gear score is bare minimum for ICC and thus refuse to even attempt the instance until everyone in their group finishes farming their emblems of frost and triumph.

Personally, I fall into the first group, while it seems the majority of my guild stand firmly in the later. Time will tell if gear requirements are indeed that lofty for this instance, but this tree certainly doesn't intended to wait around for someone else to find out.

Resto druid LFG ICC 10, pst... ;-)

3.3 Patch notes

2009-12-04T13:42:00.003-05:00

3.3 Patch notes

There isn’t much to report on the patch notes thus far for resto druids, but there are a few changes that peaked my interest.

“Gift of the Earthmother: Redesigned. This talent now increases spell haste by 2/4/6/8/10% and reduces the base global cooldown of Lifebloom by 2/4/6/8/10% instead of its previous effects”

GotE might be the most controversial and misunderstood druid talent in the resto tree, but with this change in 3.3, it may now be a no-brainer talent. Five talent points get you a 10% spell haste buff along with a 10% shorter GCD on lifebloom. The “haste cap” may be a thing of the past, but improved haste on all our spells is a giant buff to raiding trees. Is there any down side here?

“Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation: This glyph allows for the druid’s haste to reduce the time between the periodic healing effects of Rejuvenation.”

This is an interesting proposition, especially with the four set bonus allowing Rejuv ticks to crit, but is it better than the other major glyphs? Personally, I’m a swiftmend whore who likes to have that button armed for as long as possible. From a strictly raid healing view, however, it does sound like a powerful glyph to run with.

“Rebirth: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 20 minutes down to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.”

Wow. Just, wow. Basically every druid, in every raid, will have a battle rez up for every encounter. Should we revist the Rebirth glyph and think of our B-Rez as a 100% hp heal? That’s probably going a bit overboard, but still.

“Rejuvenation: The base duration on all ranks of this spell is now 15 seconds.”

Blizzard is doing a little house cleaning here. This will have no effect on level 80 raiding druids, but it’s clear from this and other patch notes that Blizzard is revisiting the leveling process, attempting to make it as efficient as possible. Is this continued movement toward easy mode proof that rumors of Cataclysm being the final chapter in WoW are being realized?

“Nature's Grace: The tooltip now correctly indicates that it will not be activated from periodic spell critical strikes.”

More house cleaning.

“Tranquility: The cooldown on this spell has been reduced to 8 minutes, down from 10 minutes.”

Now, with the Improved Tranquility talent, you’ll be able to cast this party heal every 3.2 minutes. Will we be rethinking our raid group set up in 3.3 to allow this heal to effect tanks and melee? I think the mana cost on this channeled spell still makes it an inefficient heal in a raid environment, but it will be interesting to see if some druids are able to make it work.

“Knockbacks no longer dismount players. If on a flying mount, you will be knocked back a short distance before being able to resume flying.”

Hallelujah. There’s nothing more bush league than a fail laser turkey flying around ice crown trying to make toons fall to their deaths by typhooning them off their flying mounts. I’m glad to see Blizzard is making that a thing of the past.

And finally…

The totally revamped dungeon system makes looking for a group as simple as joining a BG. As if the new heroic dungeon emblem system didn’t make gearing up easy enough, you can now queue yourself up to earn those emblems with the click of a button. I’ll save my rant on this topic for another day, but it’s clear Blizzard wants the path to end game completion to be as quick and convenient as possible. Here are some of the highlights…

“Groups using this tool will be able to teleport directly to the selected instance. Upon leaving the instance, players will be returned to their original location. If any party member needs to temporarily leave the instance for reagents or repairs, they will have the option to teleport back to the instance.”

“Players can choose the Random Dungeon option.”

“The Heroic Wrath of the Lich King Daily Random Dungeon option will award two Emblems of Frost no more than once a day.”

“The normal Wrath of the Lich King Daily Random Dungeon option will award two Emblems of Triumph no more than once a day.”

“Continuing to complete Wrath of the Lich King Heroic instances using the Daily Random Dungeon option will award players two additional Emblems of Triumph each time.”

“Random Dungeon rewards will be placed in each player’s inventory automatically upon completion of the dungeon (final boss killed). A pop-up notification will display any rewards earned through the Dungeon System.”

Healing on the run: Anub'arak

2009-12-03T16:40:00.007-05:00

Healing on the run: Anub’arak

Phase 1:

Where to stand – Get your butt to the middle of the room, near an off tank if possible. As always, do not stand in front of the boss.

What to watch for –

1. Nerubian Burrowers! – Two sets of adds will spawn during phase one. The first set will easily be picked up by the off tank and brought to a patch of ice to be dps’d down. The second set of adds, however, is far more dangerous as the off tank will likely have farther to run to pick them up (and the movement slowing affect of the ice patch to deal with as well). You’ll be healing your tanks quite a bit at that point, so don’t be surprised if the adds spawn with you as their target. Do yourself (and your off tank) a favor by stopping your heals and running toward your OT until he/she can gain aggro.

2. Penetrating Cold. – Anub’arak will cast this DoT on random toons (2 in 10 man, 5 in 25 man) throughout phase one. It’s easily healed through, but certainly worth your attention if you’re assigned to raid heals. Keep an eye on your Deadly Boss Mod for this cast.

3. Downtime. – That’s right, I said it. If all goes well in phase one, you’ll likely find yourself with very little healing to do. Only your tanks and a handful of your fellow raiders will need heals, but do NOT get complacent. Damage spikes still occur in this phase and Anub isn’t exactly tickling your main tank. Keep everyone topped off and stay sharp. Phase two will have you (literally) healing on the run.

Phase 2:

Where to stand – You won’t do a lot of standing during phase two. Toons, adds, scarabs, and Anub will all be running around like crazy, and if you’re smart, you will be too. The only advice I can give you is to pay attention to where you are and what’s going on around you.

What to watch for –

1. Anub’arak! – Phase two begins when Anub burrows underground, making him invulnerable and wiping all aggro. He will randomly target one of your raid members and chase after them (slowly at first, then gaining speed until he cannot be out run) only stopping when he runs into a patch of ice. If you’re his target (you’ll know by the skull that appears over your head) find the furthest ice patch from Anub and go stand BEHIND it. (Some guides will tell you to stand on the ice, however doing so will slow your run speed and often still results in a damaging hit from Anub.)

If you are NOT Anub’s target, pay attention to who is the target and get out of their way. Also pay attention to where Anub is while underground. Many toons have died from standing in his path and you do not want to suffer the embarrassment of being one of those toons. If you see his spikes coming in your direction, move.

2. Scarabs! – These little buggers don’t hit hard and they don’t have a ton of health, HOWEVER, they do stack a DoT on their target which will eventually make life miserable for your healers. Pay attention to when you’re picking up aggro and start kiting them early. You do not want any stacks of their DoT on you.

3. DoTs! – More times than not, a few toons will end up with a good number of scarab DoTs stacked on them. This DoT lasts 30 seconds and does roughly 1k damage per stack per tick. Add that to Penetrating Cold when Anub reemerges, and a once easy healing fight will now be crazy hectic. If keeping the raid alive is your responsibility, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Heal hard and heal fast. Oh, and more adds will be arriving soon, so expect to have aggro when they appear.

4. Your tanks. – With everyone kiting mobs, moving out of Anub’s way and dpsing the scarabs scattered all over the room, it’s easy to end up out of range of your tanks. Find them BEFORE the end of phase two and HoT them up. Anub’arak will start beating on your MT when it reemerges from underground, whether your healers are ready or not.

5. End of phase. – Phase two ends when Anub reemerges, then it returns to phase one until Anub’s health is under 30 percent. The overlapping of the two phases is the most dangerous part of the fight, so stay on your toes.

Phase 3:

Where to stand – Phase three is tank and spank, with a twist. Stand in range of as many toons as you can.

What to watch for –

1. Leeching Swarm! – Anub’s swarm damages everyone in the raid and leeches 10% of their current health every second (returning that health to Anub as a HoT). In other words, your job as a healer is to keep EVERYONE under 50% health without letting them die (except for maybe your tanks who you will likely keep topped off). This fight is tailor made for Resto druids because it basically boils down to HoTs vs. DoTs. Normally I don’t tell my fellow trees how to heal these fights, because everyone has their own build and their own style. In this case, however, I will make an exception. Healing Touch, Nourish, Regrowth and Swiftmend should NOT be used during phase three. Those spells just crit too often and heal too big for this phase. Trust your Rejuvenation and Wild Growth spells to work their magic. Save lifebloom only for spot emergencies and don’t stack more than 1. I know keeping everyone in raid at such low health goes against all your instincts as a healer, but once you get used to all the red health bars on your healing addon, it really isn’t that bad. Think quantity instead of quality in this phase, and it’ll be easier than I make it sound.

2. DoTs and adds. – When phase three begins, any adds that are out or DoTs (like penetrating cold or scarab poison) that are up will still need to be healed through. Don’t be afraid to use a big heal to save a life at this point, but once they’re all down, put those big heals away for good.

Should I freak? – Yessir, you should. This is THE end game encounter (for the moment) so downing Anub’arak is as tough as it gets. This fight truly is a skill check. If you can heal through it, you can heal through anything.

My nightmare worsens

2009-11-18T18:42:00.005-05:00

Earlier, with the release of patch 3.2, I wrote a blog on how gear scores and emblems had soiled the WoW experience for me a bit. Not only did blizzard make gearing too easy, but they made it a competition. I've since sworn off caring about wow-heroes, recount lists and emblem farming, and have tried to focus on enjoying guild progression (epic fails or not). For a while, life was good.

However, (there's always a 'but') as the title of this blog indicates, the simple joys of WoW-hood are becoming harder and harder to hold on to. The latest craze among WoWers is the uber annoying and ultra-snobby "gearscore" addon. It's intention, to make PuGing raids easier and more efficient. It's actual affect, raising noses of elitist jerks to an all time high.

It's hard to say which is worse, toons in a raid bragging about their dps... even though they died from standing in fire, or toons in a raid bragging about their gear score... even though they died from standing in fire. Either way, both leave the bulk of the heavy lifting to the "lesser" toons. You know, the ones who don't raid with their recount window open so they can see what they're standing in and stop dpsing long enough to move out of it? Yeah, those toons.

I know it's clear to everyone that gear score does not guarantee skill. I don't have to share stories of "under geared" toons out dpsing, out healing, out tanking, out lasting, or out classing their uber geared counterparts to convince you of that fact, because I know you've all witnessed it yourselves. Instead I'll sit here, biting my tongue, earnestly hoping you don't allow yourselves to get caught up in the pointless WoW addons that cause me so much annoyance.

If you care enough about playing your character well (and I'm certain you do if you're reading blogs on your class) then don't preoccupy yourself with the numbers of this game. If you spend as much time learning the fights as those "other" toons spend farming daily heroics, then gear won't matter. You'll always be in the right place at the right time, and that's something you can't measure with an addon.

Healing on the run: Twin Val'kyr

2009-11-01T00:17:00.007-04:00

Twin Val'kyr - Fjola Lightbane / Edyis Darkbane

Where to stand:

Where you stand during this fight will depend on your healing assignment. If you're healing a tank, you will want to position yourself on your tank's side of the room near an essence portal holding the opposite color of your current essence (so that you can change our essence quickly without having to move too far). If you're raid healing, position yourself in the center of the room as close to an essence portal as possible while keeping everyone in range.

Also, use command: "/console cameraDistanceMaxFactor 4" before you begin this fight. This will allow you to zoom out your camera further than normal (which helps a great deal in this fight)

What to watch for:

Dark/Light Vortex! - Throughout the fight the Twins will cast a few special abilities. The one everyone in the raid must watch out for is the Dark or Light Vortex. The vortex is a huge AoE that does 5-6k dps on every player with the opposite color essence for 5 seconds (8-9k on 25 man). Your deadly boss mod (and hopefully your tank) should tell you when this is about to be cast and what color essence you should have. If you have a light essence and the light vortex is cast, you can just stand and heal (keeping your eyes peeled for any raid members who were late changing their essence). If, however, you have a dark essence while the light vortex is being cast, stop what you're doing and run to a light portal immediately. (Trust me, the worst kind of healer is a dead healer.) The same is true for the dark vortex. Just make sure you have a dark essence when it's cast, then go about your business of healing.

Concentrated orbs! - During the fight, light and dark orbs will be flying around the room. Orbs of the same color will give you a dps buff (which you obviously don't need as a healer), orbs of the opposite color will cause you a fair amount of damage (which you obviously want to avoid). First and foremost, you want to zoom your camera out as far as possible so that you'll have plenty of warning when a bad orb is coming your way. Secondly, a captured orb will do a small AoE which can still hurt you if you're standing too close to someone who grabs an orb of the opposite color. Do your best to not stack on anyone with an opposite color essence. Thirdly, do not go out of your way to collect orbs of the same color. Your dps will be trying to collect enough orbs to trigger the "empowered" buff and they'll be none too happy if you're running around making things harder on them. Stand your ground as much as possible in this fight, and only move as far as you must to avoid an orb.

Surge of darkness/surge of light. - As soon as this fight begins, you'll notice everyone's health slowly ticking down. This is due to the Twin's surge ability. Take some time to HoT up your raid members because your tanks won't be needing too many heals at the onset.

Damage spikes. - The only real damage spikes your tanks will be taking will come via opposite color orbs, and you'll be able to heal through two or three of those without much trouble. The twins don't hit hard on their own, so if you're tank healing do be afraid to lend a hand with raid heals.

Twin's Pact. - This special ability means everything to dps and means nothing to you as a healer. Basically all dps will need to burn down a shield on one of the twins so that this ability can be interrupted or else the Twins will be healed for a substantial amount of health. Your raid leader may call out for everyone to change their essence, but really only dps need to make the change. You can just stand your ground and heal, as your essence doesn't affect this ability in the least.

Should I freak?

No way, Jose. Spacial awareness is key in this fight, and seeing as you've graduated from Naxx and Ulduar to ToC, watching where you stand should be like second nature to you. Stand, heal, be prepared for the Twin's one big ability (vortex) and this fight will be a cake walk.

Healing on the run: Faction Champions

2009-10-06T14:02:00.012-04:00

Faction Champions:

Where to stand –

In this fight, PvE meets PvP. Your raid will be up against six faction champions (ten in 25 man). There are no threat tables, plenty of CC, and damage spikes popping up any where and everywhere. Where you stand depends on where you’re needed. Go into this fight with a PvP mentality.

What to watch for –

1. DPS! – Unlike true PvP encounters, killing the healers first is actually a bad idea in this fight. Druid heals are easily purged and tree of life prevents them from CCing or dpsing, which makes the Faction Champs' tree a non factor in this fight. The Priest healer has no disc. spells to cast meaning that well timed kicks can lock up their holy spell class for most of the encounter. The Pally healer, while obnoxious with it's bubble and more difficult to lock down than the previous two classes can be contained effectively by a talented rogue. The only exception to the "kill dps first" rule is the Shaman healer Saamul. His heals are too rapid to be adequately interrupted (from my experience) and should therefore be your first kill if he is chosen to fight. The Faction Champs DPS hits hard, CCs like crazy, and has a knack for finding and murdering your fellow healers. Your raid should focus fire on a clothy DPS before moving on to higher armor classes. Also, your raid should take a moment to have it's pets target their pets. Why? Because, unlike this tree, the Faction Champs healers will target and heal pets. Once one or two of their dps go down, this fight becomes very easy to heal, and therefore becomes very easy to win.

2. Healers. – The NPC healers in this fight do NOTHING but heal. They should be interrupted, CC’d, feared, ect… whenever possible, but they should not be focus fired on until the end of the fight. I repeat, the healers in this fight do NOTHING but heal. They will not contribute to dps and they are not a danger in this encounter.

3. Debuffs. - I hope that all you trees out there have Abolish Poison and Remove Curse mapped to your healing addon. If you don't, you should do just that for this encounter. The Faction Champs Warlock and Rogue will be passing out plenty of curses and poisons for you to despell, and you will be doing your raid an injustice if you're not meeting that challenge (especially if you have no cleansing totems down).

Should I freak –

If your raid leader insists on downing their healers first, then yes, you should freak. You will be silenced, you will be feared, you will be spell kicked, and eventually you will become a favorite target of a lock, rogue, or hunter. Do your best to root, stomp and cyclone your way to survival. If, however, your raid leader takes the easy road and agrees to down their dps first, this fight will be the easiest encounter in the Colosseum.

Healing on the run: Lord Jaraxxus

2009-10-06T13:17:00.004-04:00

Lord Jaraxxus

Where to stand. – The raid will be spread out in a semi-circle around the center of the room, making it difficult (if not impossible) to stay in range of everyone. Coordinate raid coverage with your other healers and do your best to remain on your side of the room throughout the fight. As usual, don’t stand in front of the boss.

What to watch for –

1. Incinerate Flesh! – This nasty little debuff will be cast on a random toon every 30 seconds or so throughout the fight. It decreases the target’s damage done by 50% for 12 seconds and it absorbs the next 30000 (60000 in 25 man) healing received. More importantly, if the debuff is not removed it will result in a burning inferno, which puts a hard hitting DoT on the entire raid for 5 seconds. The only way to remove incinerate flesh is to heal the target for 30000 hp before it expires. Also, the target will not be taking any damage from the debuff (which will make it hard to find on your healing addon), so keep an eye on your deadly boss mod to find out who has it. Prioritize this target above all others (excepting for the main tank).

2. Legion Flame! – Yet another debuff from Lord Jaraxxus that’ll make your healing life more difficult. This single target debuff will put fire under your feet (yay, more fire) but as you run away it will follow you around leaving a trail of fire behind. Obviously you want to avoid burning your fellow raid members, so when you get this debuff, turn and run straight back to the outer wall, avoiding everyone that you can. When it wears off, try to find a fire free path back to your position so that you can resume healing.

3. Fel Fireball. – The bad news is, these fireballs hit hard and they put a DoT on their target making the task of keeping the victim alive very difficult. The good news is, it can and should be interrupted by melee every time Jaraxxus attempts to cast it. Keep your eyes peeled for any fireballs that slip through, but if things are going well, Fel Fireballs should be a non-factor.

4. Chain lighting. – Yes Lord Jaraxxus has a chain lighting so the raid will want to spread out. However, it doesn’t hit terribly hard, and unlike other chain lightings, it doesn’t get more powerful each time it jumps to a toon, so don’t worry too much if you can’t find a spot 10 yards away from everyone else. If you can find a place to stand that isn’t on fire and allows you to be in range of half the raid, you’re in good shape.

5. Mistress of pain. – This if the first of two adds that Jaraxxus will summon. She likes to jump around, picking up random toons to pile drive them. All melee (except for those responsible for interrupting fire balls) and all range (except for those responsible for spell stealing) will burn down this add asap. Be prepared to be picked up and dropped on your head, and make haste running back to your spot afterward, being sure to avoid running through fire.

6. Infernals. – This is the second of the two adds that the boss will summon. They have a nasty AoE, so don’t stand near one and be sure to scramble your roots should one chase after you. Only ranged will dps these buggers, so if everyone is paying attention, only your OT will be taking dmg from these adds.

Should I freak? Honestly, this fight is easier to heal than the Beasts of Northrend. So, if you survived that, this should be a walk in the park for you. A very long, intense, fire riddled walk, but you get the idea. Good luck champions of Thunderbluff!

Slow going

2009-09-21T11:32:00.003-04:00

This is a quick apology for not posting much content on my blog lately. Progression has been slow going, and with alts and my attempts at mastering the feral cat rotation, there really hasn't been much to report on my end.

I will say there have been two confirmed TLPD kills on my server since my last update (I was in the wrong place at the wrong time for both) so those of you who have given up on it, trust that it is indeed still out there for the taking. It just takes a LOT of patience.

I've also been farming the raven lord mount in Sethekk Halls. There are two guides out there on how to solo the boss. One takes nearly an hour (and involves letting the Eagle spirit do all the damage) and the other is a little more challenging but goes much quicker (must have decent feral gear). Personally, I've been 2man-ing it with a guildie and it goes pretty quick (no mount drops yet.)

In other news, I've almost finished clearing 25 man trial of the crusader, and as soon as I become more familiar with all the fights, I'll have some guides up for you to check out.

'Til then, be good.

Twig Heals 101: HealBot (setup 2)

2009-08-24T18:42:00.014-04:00

The second half of the healbot setup is all about the look and feel of the addon. Familiarize yourself with the following screens and don't be afraid to play with them during your next raid. Healing addons can only be effective if you make sure they're displaying ALL the information you need in a manner in which you can understand.

Healbot 3.2.0.0 Healing tab:

The healing bars tab controls which health bars appear on your screen. There are options to display targets not in your raid, pets, tanks, even vehicles if you wish. My setup leaves main tanks unchecked, as I prefer to have their health bar appear with the other members of their group instead of at the top of my healbot UI. That allows me to easily see when my wildgrowth spell can best be used on the melee group. Play around with these settings to decide which health bars you do and do not want to appear on your healbot UI.

Also of note in this tab are the alert level and range check settings.

Alert level: This setting tells healbot to alert you when a target goes below a certain percentage of their hp.

Range check frequency: This setting tells healbot how often to check the range of all targets in your raid. The lower the setting the faster you'll know if someone in your raid has moved out of healing range.

Disable bar when range over 100 yards: This will remove the health bar of any target over 100 yards away from your healbot UI.

Healbot 3.2.0.0 Cure tab:

This section of healbot allows you to monitor dispellable debuffs on members of your raid and to set which spells you will use to remove the debuff. You should definitely have your abolish poison and remove curse spells mapped to your mouse in the spells tab if you want to utilize this screen properly.

Healbot 3.2.0.0 Skin 1 tab:

Skin 1 tab directly affects the appearance of the headers and font of your healbot UI as well as aggro and current HoTs a target has. I highly recommend having your HoTs appear on the health bars with a duration counter so you can know exactly when a target's heals are going to run out. I also recommend enabling the monitor aggro function as it allows you to see instantly when a raid member has pulled aggro from a tank as well as when they have picked up an add.

Healbot 3.2.0.0 Skin 2 tab:

The Skin 2 tab directly affects the look of the health bars on your healbot UI. You can adjust height, width, number of groups per column, opacity, mana bar size, etc... in this tab. Play around with these settings to get healbot to look and feel the way you want it to.

Healbot 3.2.0.0 Tips tab:

The tips tab controls the tooltips that are displayed by healbot. Set these to your preference.

Healbot 3.2.0.0 Buffs tab:

The buffs tab allows you to monitor which members of your raids are missing your buffs as well as notifies you when the buffs are about to expire. My setup only monitors Gift of the Wild because I rarely apply thorns to anyone other than the tanks in my raids and they account for so little damage it's not worth the mana it costs to reapply them mid fight.

And there you have part two of the healbot setup. I've tried to keep my descriptions and explanations short and sweet, and I hope your own setup will be just that... short and sweet.

Coming up next we step out of the setup screens and take a look at healbot in action. Both healbot users and Grid & Clique users will find useful tips in my next post. So stay tuned.

Healing on the Run: Trial of the Crusader

2009-08-18T14:52:00.005-04:00

Healing on the run: Beasts of Northrend

Phase 1: Gormok the Impaler

Where to stand: Start out in the middle of the coliseum a good five yards from anyone else and move whenever fire AoE is placed at your feet.

What to watch for:

Fire! Throughout the fight Gormok’s Snobolds will put fire under your roots. Fire and trees do not mix. Run out of it asap. And keep your eyes out for others who are slow hauling their toosh as well. You can’t heal through it, but you can buy them another second or two to get out of the flame.

Tanks! Gormok will stack a DoT on the main tank until the off tank taunts him off. This DoT lasts for 20 seconds after the taunt, so keep heals up on both tanks throughout this fight.

Snobolds. Random toons will be effected by little nasties that jump on their backs. These buggers need to be dpsed off. They don’t hit terribly hard, but they do slow your movement down and interrupt spell casting when they jump on you. Call out if you get one and pay a little extra attention to other toons that have them as well.

Mana. Know that you’ve just started a long three boss fight with no chance to mana up in between. Phase 1 is basic tank and spank so conserve as much mana as you can while keeping the raid up and looking good.

Should I freak? Not yet. This is the easier of the three phases. Keep an eye on what you’re standing in and don’t heal too big. You’ll have a few seconds after Gormok goes down to top off the raid.

Phase 2: Acidmaw and Dreadscale

Where to stand: Again, you’ll want to start out in the middle of the coliseum and cheat to the side that your tank is kiting the flame worm around.

What to watch for:

Paralytic Toxin! Acidmaw will put a debuff on members of the raid. This stackable debuff will eventually lock you in place and the only way to remove it is with Dreadscale’s debuff called burning bile. The tank kiting Dreadscale around the room will have the burning bile aura, so run to him/her, gain the debuff, and run back to the middle of the coliseum. Keep your eyes peeled for toons running to and from Dreadscale as well. If you’re paralyzed, call out for someone to bring the burning bile aura to you.

Dreadscale enrage! If your group chooses to burn down Acidmaw first, Dreadscale will enrage doing huge damage. Luckily, it’s only single target damage, so spread out and heal the tank big until your raid burns Dreadscale down.

Mana. I know you’re a druid and mana isn’t something you usually worry about, but you’re currently in the toughest phase of a three boss fight and there’s no rest in sight. Conserve where you can and remember to innervate your friends.

Acidmaw burrow. Half way through the fight, Acidmaw will burrow underground. When it reemerges it will not only be mobile but it will also have wiped aggro. Look for overzealous dps to heal while your tank regains Acidmaw’s attention.

Watch where you’re standing. With toons running around, worms switching from stationary to mobile, debuffs galore and tanks spread out across the room, it’s easy to let yourself drift into a bad position. Never let yourself get in front of a worm and never let yourself get behind the mobile worm. Your best bet is to stay parallel with the tank as he kites the worm around the outer edge of the room.

Should I freak? If you must freak out, now is the time to do it. You’re in phase two of a tough three boss fight. There’s no break after the worms go down, no chance of running back in if you go down, and no way of picking the fight up from here if you wipe. Stay on your toes, use all your tools and try to keep the raid up through this crazy phase.

Phase 3: Icehowl

Where to stand: Once again, in the middle of the coliseum.

What to watch for:

Massive Crash! This beast of a yeti will jump up into the air and come crashing down hard… throwing the entire raid against the wall and stunning them. The crash itself doesn’t hurt much, but what happens afterward is what you need to worry about. Icehowl will charge at a random toon while they’re up against the wall. Once the stun wears off, you need to be running to your left or right immediately to avoid being hit by the charging yeti or else it’s instant death.

Ferocious butt! Feel bad for your main tank. Throughout this fight, Icehowl will be headbutting him/her for up to 25K damage while also stunning them for 2.5 seconds. Big heals on the tank if you want to survive this nightmare.

Mana. You no longer need to conserve, but you do need to find enough mana to heal big and hard in this phase. Hopefully you’ve innervated a fellow healer at some point in this fight. And hopefully your cooldown will allow you to innervate someone again.

Should I freak? Nah. Being knocked against a wall and seeing a giant Yeti running at you can be a little unsettling, but it’s nothing you can’t handle. Stay calm and focused on this phase. You’ve come too far and fought too long to fail and have to start over. Mana is the key to your success. Save it for the moments you really need it and you’ll outlast this endurance fight without a problem.

Good luck out there!

Innervate: The verdict

2009-08-17T21:54:00.004-04:00

When patch notes come out, I usually try my best to keep an even keel.
Take 3.2 for instance. Lifebloom is getting nerfed again? That
sucks, but I’m getting used to it. Rejuvenation will soon be able to
crit? That’s pretty cool but I’m not going to freak out over it.
Innervate’s length and cool down will be cut in half? That’s pretty
sweet. Really sweet. Actually, that’s kinda awesome. Wicked awesome!
YES! (You see where I kind of lost my head.)

The idea of having two innervates in one fight (even if they are half
as effective) really had me pumped up over its potential. I was
picturing one innervate for me about a minute or two in to the fight
then another innervate for my favorite priest 3 minutes later. The
more I thought about it the more I pictured the two of us swimming
happily in an endless pool of mana healing all and bringing peace to
the world.

Reality check.

The patch comes out, our first raid rolls around, and oops… I forget
to innervate early in the fight (old habits die hard). No worries. I
pop my innervate on my priest friend and then make a mental note to
remember the change next time. About a minute goes by and…

Surprised priest: “Beck. Innervate me.”
Depressed druid: “Uh, I just did.”
Surprised priest: “Seriously, I’m almost OOM. Innervate.”
Depressed druid: “But… I… uh…cooldown?”
Surprised priest: “I’m OOM. Heal tank.”
Depressed druid: “…”

At this point I’m healing big and healing everywhere. Every time I
get the raid topped off I mouse over my innervate icon. 45 seconds…
44… 43… Regrowth, swiftmend, wild growth, check. 30… 29… 28… Rejuv,
nourish, nourish, wildgrowth, check. 18… 17… 16… hang in there
priest. It’s coming. 3… 2… 1… finally!

The fight ends, a few ranged are down (because my GCD won’t let me be
everywhere), and slap my ass and call me junior… some of MY spell
icons have turned grey. /emote shock and awe.

I chalk that up to bad luck and try to get the new innervate thing
down in the next fight. I innervate myself early… notice a few ticks
going to waist, then innervate the priest about the same time I
normally would. Same problem. She doesn’t get enough mana back to
last her through the fight.

Next fight I try to innervate her early, time it so it nearly tops her
off, then pop it again on her as soon as it’s up. Success! Three
fights in and I get the innervate thing figured out. And just as I’m
about to breathe easy… it hits me. Two innervates and still none of
them go to me. /Sigh.

I knew that priest healers didn’t need ALL of the old innervate, but
as it turns out they do need more than half of it. So, after allowing
myself to get over excited about the mana possibilities in 3.2, I’ve
now grown bitter (which is what happens when you set yourself up for a
let down).

It isn’t a big deal really. Most fights I don’t need innervate. Most
fights I don’t even think about innervate. But when those long boss
fights do roll around I find myself cursing Blizzard thinking about
what could have been. What should have been.

Never again will I allow myself to get pumped up over a patch. Never
will I let the possibilities overwhelm me. Nope. Never. Not even
the idea of a Tauren pally, which is pretty sweet... and kind of cool. Really cool, actually…

Twig Heals: HealBot (setup 1)

2009-08-08T18:09:00.013-04:00

Notice: This Healbot setup guide was written for version 3.2 and is now somewhat out dated. You can find my setup guide for the newest version of HealBot (v. 3.3.0) here.

The biggest obsticle new raiding druids have to get over is learning to use a healing addon. Whether you choose HealBot (which is easier to use "out of the box") or Grid + Clique (which is much more customizable), you'll need to understand how they work in order to get the most out of them. This guide will focus on the setup and use of HealBot (the debate of Grid v. HealBot is best saved for another blog).

Let's take a look at each HealBot screen and see how they affect the addon.

HealBot 3.2.0.0 General tab:

The top half of the HealBot 'General' tab mostly affects your UI. The options are fairly self explanitory, save for the last two.

Disable HealBot: Disable all events and hide the bars (This is the off switch)
Show MiniMap Button: Show button on minimap, hold right mouse button to move
Lock Position: Locks the frames in place
Anchor: Set the anchor point, HealBot will then grow away from the anchor
Close Automatically: Closes the frame when no one needs a buff/heal (only when out of combat)
Play sound on open: Plays a sound when the frame is opened.
Hide options button: Hides the option button on the frame
Right click on panel opens options: Enable right click to open the options menu
Hide Party Frames: Hide the standard party frames (yourself and target optional)
Enable libQuickHealth: Allows your addon to interact with other healers so that you can see what targets have an incoming heal and what targets are being resurrected. It's very useful in a raid situation and should be enabled.
Use CPU profiler: Allows HealBot to interact with a CPU usage addon. Basically it tracks how much of your pc's resources are being used by your addons. If you don't have a CPU usage addon installed, there's no reason to check this box off in your HealBot setup.

The bottom half of the 'General' tab allows you to send automatic messages when you perform an action with HealBot. Spamming notifications in raid will frustrate and annoy, however, so check off 'Notify for resurrection only' or nothing at all.

Once you have your general setup taken care of, it's time to map your mouse keys (which is the whole reason you downloaded an addon to begin with). Think about your healing style for a minute before you start mapping your spells.

HealBot 3.2.0.0 Spells tab:

The drop down menu let's you choose if you want your HealBot bars enabled at all times or only in combat. I recommend having them on at all times so you can get used to looking at them for party information (instead of the standard party frames that you're used to.)

You'll notice five buttons below the drop down menu. This is where you map spells to the corresponding mouse button (i.e. Left for left click, right for right click, etc...) You've probably realized by now that we have more than 3 to 5 healing spells, so in order for healbot to give you access to all of your talents, we have to include 'Shift', 'Ctrl', and 'Alt' with our mouse clicks. (Note: If you have other actions mapped to these keys in your interface, you should move them now.)

The way you set up your spells is up to you, though I recommend mapping your most used spells to the simplest click and then continue from there. (You may notice that my middle mouse button is strictly resurrection and debuff spells. I find having my battle rez mapped there keeps it out of the way.)

Save unique spells for each spec: Allows you to map different spells for your duel spec without having to constantly change your HealBot settings.
Use Enabled Settings when target in combat: If the target is in combat, your HealBot settings will be enabled for that target.
Always use Enabled Settings: Always use enabled settings in or out of combat.
Avoid accidental PVP flagging: Keeps bars disabled if the target is PVP flagged and you're not.
SmartCast when out of combat: This will automatically select a spell when out of combat to res, buff, remove debuffs, or heal your target (binds to left click).

Take your time on the 'Spells' tab and study where you have your spells mapped. It will take some practice to cast your spells in this manner, but once you have their hotkeys mastered, you're healing will become much quicker and efficient.

HealBot 3.2.0.0 Healing tab:

The top half of the 'Healing' tab allows you to choose what bars appear on your HealBot UI. You obviously want your party/raid to appear and it's important to have your own bar there as well. Whether you want pets to appear is up to you, and if you'd like the tanks to be seperated from the rest, there's an option for that too.

Alert level: Sets a target %hp for HealBot to alert you when a target needs heals. The target's health bar will go from opaque to solid whenever their health reaches this level or lower. This setting allows you to know exactly who's taking damage and who you should be focusing your heals on.

Range check frequency: This changes how often HealBot will do a range check on your raid. The more frequent you set it, the faster you'll know if someone moved out of your range or not.

So there you have the first half of the HealBot setup. At this point your HealBot is ready to use. The second half of the tutorial will cover monitoring and removing debuffs (in and out of combat) as well as changing the look of healbot to fit your preferences.

I'm not that smart... really.

2009-07-30T19:46:00.007-04:00

Most of the druids I talk to on my server are guildies who are fairly new to level 80 and are still gearing. Their number 1 concern when raiding is mana management, which until now I've been chalking up to their gear. But as I read more and more resto druid guides, I'm discovering that mana seems to be an issue for a lot of experienced, established trees as well.

That kind of got me thinking that I'm doing something wrong, as I don't have mana issues... ever. And I'm not sure why that is. My toon doesn't have huge amounts of int (hence the title of this post ^.^) and my mp5 is good not great, so how is it that I'm not healing to oom when so many admittedly better resto druids are?

Unbuffed I'm looking at 2.3k +heals, 17,000 mana with 241 mp5 (while casting). Buffed and with Flask of Pure Mojo, I put out roughly 2.8 to 3.3 hps single target healing, and 3.1 to 3.5 hps on the raid. My build takes advantage of all the mana saving talents, but so does every other tree I've looked at. So, it must be my healing style, right? Maybe you all can help me figure this out?

Here's my approach...

Regardless of my assignment, I play the role of raid healer (obviously paying more attention to my tank if I'm assigned the single target role). I pre-hot one or two tanks (depending on the pull) then get ready with swiftmend as my first response to burst damage. Everyone else in the raid goes without HoTs... for now. (I'm curious if other trees out there pre-HoT dps targets as well as tanks to start a fight.)

As the fight progresses and the tanks move into their positions, I renew their HoTs and watch for isolated damage on other raid members (such as a fireball from Razorscale.) If I see someone get hit, and I know they aren't likely to take immediate follow up damage, I'll throw a rejuv on them and let it tick them back to full (or get eaten up by a priest/pally heal).

As we move further in the fight I start planning for raid wide damage (such as Kologarn's left arm or XT-002's tantrums) and if I time it right, I can have rejuv rolling on ranged, wild growth ticking on melee, HoTs on my tanks, and a lifebloom for yours truely. That's usually enough to keep everyone up as I cycle back through with more HoTs and Nourishes on the toons taking more hits.

Inevitably someone gets a little too close for comfort to critical, so NS+HT comes in handy (I usually pop it 2-3 times per fight depending on the length). And my favorite heal, swiftmend is plan B should another of my buddies find themselves in dire straights.

It's pretty much rinse and repeat from there. I never put more than 1 lifebloom on a target unless it's a fight where I know my tank will be taking more damage spikes than I can respond to with NS+HT, swiftmend, HoTs+Regrowth, and Nourish spams.

Is that far off from what you all do in your raids? I'll be really upset if it turns out my style is putting undue pressure on my fellow raid healers and my numbers aren't where they should be.

To summarize my approach, I'd say I'm a reaction healer, making sure all my tools are available when I need them, but waiting until after the damage occurs to put them to work.

Any thoughts, tips, suggestions on how I can be more mana inefficient... err... I mean better at what I do?

Group dynamics

2009-07-29T23:59:00.003-04:00

Admittedly I play in a *casual raiding guild*. I wouldn't have it any other way. The plus side is obvious from the word casual. We schedule our raids but by no means make them mandatory or issue punishments to those who miss them. It's a come as/when you can and together we'll fight our way through this progression type of scenario. Again, I wouldn't have it any other way. The negative side, however, is that raid success can be up and down (mostly when we're required to pug a few spots to get the thing off the ground), and consistently getting an invite to 10 man Ulduar is never a guarantee (seeing as we don't have the tanks and heals to form two separate groups week in and week out).

My question to those of you in smaller raiding guilds is this... How does your guild handle 10 man Ulduar groups? Do you schedule them on your guild calendar and take the first 10 who sign up? Do you have a set group of 10 that go, and the rest sit on the bench (or pug in)? What about some kind of regular rotation where everyone gets to roll with the guildies... just not every week?

In a previous post I wrote how I used to pug in to Ulduar whenever possible, just to make sure I got my loot chances in every week (back when I was obsessing over my gear score). Now I'm more than happy to sit on the side lines while our newer healers bang their heads against Ulduar, keeping myself available to fill in or fill out a raid when needed (hunting my drake in the meantime). After all, the more geared toons we have, the more successful we'll be going forward. Not everyone shares my view, however, as in recent weeks some people we've geared up have jumped ship looking for greener pastures. I feel no ill will towards those former guildies of mine, but I can't help but feel a bit slighted having helped bring them up then watching them leave before they can pay it forward.

Where do you all stand on this? Where does loyalty end and ambition begin for you? If a guild fits your play style but not your schedule do you move on? Is it more about playing with people you like or people who match your skill? Are guilds just a way to progress through the game, or are they more personal than that?

Personally, I'm in my guild because I enjoy playing/talking with everyone in it. I'm sure if I ran off to go join a hardcore group I'd earn newer flasher sexier gear, but it wouldn't be nearly as fun or satisfying as progressing with my friends. In a "what have you done for *me* lately" society, am I the only one who feels that way?

Just curious.

Confessions of a tree...

2009-07-24T13:59:00.003-04:00

Okay, I have to come clean. I bent the rules a little at the office, and now my work place’s cyber police have come down hard on yours truly. I admit that I log on to do a teensy bit of blogging at work from time to time. Nothing major of course, just a link fix here, a Freya guide there, you know… little stuff. Unfortunately, the powers that be discovered my minor infraction and have decided to essentially execute my blog!

I’m sure you’re all saying to yourselves “What, Beck?! That’s not fair!” with genuine shock and awe. But it’s true. Twig Heals is now blocked by websense in my office. /wrists.

What this means is…
1. Word of my blog’s existence will have to travel outside of this building if anyone is ever going to read it.

2. Those coworkers of mine who did read my blog will now have to get their lunchtime WoW fix elsewhere.

3. Any innocent office blogging bystanders with serious, forward thinking, relevant, and important blogs hosted on blogspot will now be joining Twig Heals on websense's death row.

4. Finally, and most importantly, I have nothing to do at my desk except work. All day! Every day!!

Yes, this is a sad day for Twig Heals. But there is some silver lining. Those of you computer savvy enough to find a proxy server not blocked by websense on your office PCs will still be able to visit Twig Heals (or any other website) at work. And for the less daring folk out there, Google cache’s webpages and makes them available to you in their search engine. These cached pages are basically snap shots of the website and are often viewable even though websense has the site blocked.

Anyway, I just wanted to give you all an update. Power to the people! Down with websense!! And I’ll talk to you all… after work.

Healing on the run: Freya

2009-07-14T18:51:00.016-04:00

If you've been pulled into an Ulduar group, but you haven't had the time to watch the vids or read the blogs, here's a quick reference guide on what you *should* know about the Freya fight. Good luck!

Freya:

Phase 1:

Where to stand - Where you stand depends on which adds you're fighting...

Elementals - Stay away from Storm Lasher's AoE and always in range of your assigned tank.

Lashers - You'll be stacking on the main tank to AoE them down.

Ancients - You will need to run from mushroom to mushroom as they spawn and despawn or else you'll be unable to cast.

What to watch for -

1. Adds! Freya begins phase 1 basically invulnerable because of the 150 stacks of Attuned to Nature buff that she has. The buff increases healing done to her by 4% per stack and can only be removed by killing the 6 waves of the adds that she spawns. Understanding the three types of adds and killing them in the 60 seconds allowed (before the next wave of adds arrives) is the key to completing phase 1.

- Type 1 - Elemental adds - These three elementals each hit very hard and must die Romeo and Juliet style (within 12 seconds of each other) or else they will respawn the others. See below...

-- Snaplasher - If you're healing the snaplasher group, beware it's stacking buff. As it is attacked it will increase its damage output by 10% for each stack it gains, so the damage spikes will get bigger and bigger on the tank until all dps stops to let the buff wear off.

-- Storm Lasher - If you're healing the storm lasher group, you'll be healing against AoE damage. Only a tank should be near this add while your ranged classes dps it down. Roll your HoTs and then help out the rest of the raid.

-- Ancient Water Spirit - If you're healing the Water Spirit group, give your tank plenty of overheals. This thing hits hard and hits often. It will also randomly charge at someone in your raid. You'll be in the best position to see when and where this happens, so healing that target is also your responsibility.

- Type 2 - Exploding Lashers - These little nasties have an aggro wipe which makes them very difficult for the tanks to pick up. For that reason, the party usually stacks in one spot while they're AoE'd down. Individually they don't hit very hard, but when they die they do a fairly strong AoE attack which can get out of hand if too many are dying at once. Get those HoTs rolling and prioritize your healing targets while you fight to stay ahead of damage spikes.

- Type 3 - Ancient Conservator - This add has an aura that prevents all casting and attacks unless you're standing under one of the mushrooms that spawn while he's up. The mushrooms start small, grow and then disappear in a short amount of time. Do your best to stay in range of your assignments as you move from one mushroom to another. Also, the Ancient will place a debuff on one character (called Nature's Fury). This debuff causes AoE damage to anyone near the player affected. Keep an eye out for the player affected.

2. Lifebinder's Gifts - Throughout the fight, trees called "Lifebinder's Gift" will grown around Freya. When they're fully grown they will heal Freya and any adds that are up until it is destroyed. Who ever is assigned to down these trees will often be running out of healing range to do so. Keep an eye on them and prepare to run to their rescue if they should pick up an add while they work.

Should I freak? Hell yes! Phase 1 of the Freya fight is an ability check on everyone in your raid... including healers. You'll be changing gears with each set of adds, and there will likely be some carry over from one wave to another, making your job that much more challenging. Pay attention and heal your branches off!

Phase 2:

Where to stand - Stand with the ranged group so you all can move as a unit when seed bombs come out. (~Tip courtesy of Averna)

What to watch for -

1. Seed bombs! - Freya's main attack ability is throwing seed bombs at the raid. They're easy to spot and should be avoided at all costs because they hit very hard. If someone gets hit, they will need huge heals... if they survive.

2. Lifebinder's Gifts. - These trees continue to grow during phase 2 and will still need to be destroyed immediately. Keep an eye on the toons who run out of range to down these and pray that enough dps survived to this point to beat the enrage timer.

Should I freak? Nope. The hard part is over. Watch where you're standing and throw whatever heals you have left on the raid. The enrage timer is pretty easy to beat even with a battered and broken raid group.

Stay focused and enjoy your tier gear!

For Blood and Honor: XT-002 Deconstructor

2009-07-10T19:32:00.000-04:00

Tazanian walks ahead of our group because it’s his duty. Whatever fiends await us must first meet with his sword. The last of the true knights of our realm, he absorbs the wrath of any evil he must, so that the rest of us don't have to. I walk ahead of our group for entirely different reasons, doing my best to keep pace with Taz while observing the rag tag band of heroes trailing behind. Tales of Ulduar will be told long after we leave its black stone walls. Lore will be built on our triumphs. Legend will be made of the great feats witnessed here. But, the memories I share of this colossal dungeon in the northern peaks will be of the unique faces now meandering behind me and the one stoic paladin who marches ahead.

"Let's move it up." Taz declares over his shoulder, causing the uneven gait of the raid to straighten. Kwaggmire, a good natured death knight, weaves his way to the front of the pack pausing once to tell Whippet a joke, and then again to wack Bloogan on the helm, forcing it down over his eyes. "This place makes my head spin" Kwag says looking straight up. "I know the feeling" Bloogan replies, still readjusting his head piece. Their smiles set against the blackness of this hallway illustrate the kinship of war better than this druid's words ever could. "Feast is down." Taz announces from the threshold of the next room. "Eat up."

The scene around the fire and feast reminds me of home. Laughter fills our little corner of Ulduar, and as the light-hearted ribbing dies down, Tazanian rises to his feet. All eyes turn to watch as he steps forward into Deconstructor's room, taking his position and unsheathing his sword. His line in the sand has been drawn and we all know in order to join him we had best be ready to fight. One by one faces grow intent and focused. I rise and take position to Taz's right. The familiar feeling of confidence comes over me as I see Elissis take her position to his left. Turning my eyes to the front I'm almost certain I catch a glimpse of Akulu stealing a kiss from his wife. Quickly shifting my eyes back reveals no evidence of such, save the growing smile on Elissis' face. "Let's get a ready check." Akulu orders now standing at Taz' side. I pull focus on the group of bots guarding the entrance... even less certain of what I thought I just saw.

The courtyard we find ourselves in features scrap heaps in every corner of the room. The bots, mecho-spiders, and various other mechanical nasties that greeted us at the entrance now lay in pieces under our feet. At the far side of the room, alone atop a platform, stands the gateway I traveled so many miles through the storm peaks to see. Blood boils in my veins, pulsating behind my eyes, as I remind myself of who waits for us on the other side of that door. Freya's fate will soon be in my hands, but for now she will have to wait... a stinking pile of metal stands in my way.

XT-002 Deconstructor stomps deliberately at the back of the room, challenging us to approach. Without hesitation Taz charges at it head on, and I scramble to catch up. The piercing ping of steal on steal rings through every inch of Ulduar as Taz' shield stops Deconstructor dead in its tracks. At once I realize I'm late to this fight. Our bravest blood elf stands unflinching at the sight of XT-002 raising a fist... and I'm out of range! Now sprinting forward as fast as my roots will take me, I see little Elissis slide to a stop at Taz' heels casting her bubble an instant before the fist rains down. For what seems like an eternity, Elissis and Taz stand alone against the steel giant... and they're winning!

The rest of the raid arrive at XT's feet with a barrage of attacks sending it into a tantrum. Moments later, sparks fill the air, angry bots emerge from the scrap heaps, and Deconstructor's mechanical heart falls from its chest. For a moment I stare past the sparking heart at the gateway behind it. Rage takes control. Moonfire, wrath, starfire... I light into Deconstructor's heart with a lust for blood. Moonfire, wrath, starfire... I start to chant to myself with every cast. Get... out of... my... way. Get... out of... my... way!

Blackout.

Imphyy and Kjeldoran jog off to clean up what's left of the scrap bots in the room, Akulu sifts through Deconstructor's remains, and I stand panting in place. "What happened?" I hear a voice say. Unsure of whether it was my own, I pretend not to have heard it. My composure returns and I shift myself back into tree of life form. "Let's move it up." our stoic paladin declares over his shoulder as he makes his way up the steps to the gateway. I jog up behind following his lead. Tazanian walks ahead of our group because it's his duty... I walk ahead of our group for entirely different reasons.

Twig heals: Get started raiding resto

2009-07-08T14:13:00.015-04:00

I have a dream that my resto children will one day live in a realm where they will not be judged by the color of their gear but by the skill of their character.

I have a dream today.

Make no mistake, gear does not make the druid. There are some benchmarks you'll want to reach before stepping out of heroics and into 10 & 25 man raids, but in the end, it's your skill and your talents that will make or break you as a raiding tree.

Most new level 80s who want to raid come to me with the same question. "What gear should I be wearing?" My first response is always "What ever gets the job done." And it's true. Enchanted, buffed, and talented, a druid wearing mostly blues, with 14-15k spell power, can handle healing through naxx 10 pretty well (despite what some raid snobs will try to tell you). Without the gear enhancements and just the build, heroic dungeons will be challenging, but certainly do able in your quest blues. It's all about what tools you have and how you use them.

If you're looking for a pre-Naxx loot list, check out HoTsTree list here. If you're looking for a bare bones make the most out of what you've got type guide... keep reading.

First things first... here are some benchmarks to keep in mind.

Heroics - 1.2-1.4k bonus healing, 11-12k mana, 175 mana regen (while casting)
Naxx 10 - 1.4-1.6k bonus healing, 13-14k mana, 215 mana regen (while casting)
Naxx 25 - +1.6k bonus healing, +15k mana, +255 mana regen (while casting)

Those numbers are not set in stone, however. The more experience you have healing, and the more familiar you are with healbot, grid, or other healing addon, the more you'll able to get by with lesser stats. Don't be like everyone else and get caught up in the numbers. Jump into a group and see if you can get the job done. If you can, great. Enjoy your new loots. If you cant, don't worry. You're just going to need to upgrade a bit.

For those of you who need a little help with your gear, let's see if we can cut some corners to get you where you need to be. Here's where you start...

Step 1: Grind some daily quests.

You can easily make 100g in a little over an hour once you get comfortable running your Sons of Hodir and Argent Tournament quests. Your Hodir rep will eventually lead to better shoulder enchants and the gold will help pay for some expensive item enhancements, so get to grinding.

Step 2: Join a wintergrasp offensive every so often.

The stone keeper's shards that you get from the WG dailies will get you some head and shoulder enchants right off the bat (while you work on your Hodir and Wyrmrest Accord rep). The WG marks will also give you access to some nice PvP rings to run with (until you can get better PvE rings to drop).

Step 3: Make a shopping list.

Every druid gears up differently. If you PvP a lot coming up to 80, then Gladiator gear will fill some of your slots. If you level up through normal instance runs, then you'll already have some sexy loots here and there. Identify your weakest gear pieces, and then use what resources you have to replace them first.

Step 4: Spend, spend, spend.

Gold is easy to come by now that you're max level. Don't be shy about blowing your bank roll at the AH... several times. Trust me, those blues you're wearing won't look so bad with some enchants on them.

That's really all there is to it.

Now let's get into some specifics.

The item enhancements:

Head - Arcanum of Dominance (+29 sp / cost 40 stone keeper's shards)
or Arcanum of Blissful Mending (+30 sp & +8 mp5 / Wyrmrest Accord)
Shoulder - Inscription of Dominance (+23 sp / cost 30 stone keeper's)
or Greater Inscription of the Crag (+24 sp & +6 mp5 / Sons of Hodir)
Back - Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed (+ 23 Haste / cost $$)
Chest - Enchant Chest - Mana Prime (+6 mp5 / cost $$)
Wrist - Fur Lining - Spell power (+67 sp / cost 1 arctic fur - only for leather workers)
Hands - Enchant Gloves - Major spellpower (+20 sp / cost $$)
Belt - Eternal belt buckle + *Gem of your choice* (add sp, int, or mp5 here depending on your need)
Legs - Sanctified Spellthread (+50 spell power +20 spirit / cost $$)
Feet - Enchant Boots - Greater Spirit (+18 spirit / cost $$)

Aside from the wrist emboss, all of these enhancements are available to anyone who has the currency. If you pick them all up, you will increase your bonus healing by 194, add some nice mp5, and put a little more depth in your mana pool. Not too shabby right? That's basically the difference between running heroics and running 10 man Naxx.

Don't forget the consumables either.

Flask of pure mojo = +38 mp5 for 1 hour (lasts through death)
Flask of the Frostwyrm = +125 spell power for 1 hour (lasts through death)
Flask of Distilled Wisdom = +65 intellect for 1 hour (lasts through death)

And we're not done... spending that is.

You'll notice near the top of every pre-Naxx gear list are craftable epics. That's no accident. If you saved your gold (or know some leather workers, blacksmiths, and tailors) you can pick up these sexies the day you turn 80.

Back - Wispcloak
Chest - Moonshroud Robe
Legs - Earthgiving Legguards
Feet - Earthgiving Boots
Weapon - Titansteel Guardian

And if you're really rich (or have a main with 60 Emblems of Valor) you can pick up a pair of bracers from the vendor in Dalaran that just happen to be BoE.

Wrist - Bands of the Great Tree

The bottom line here is this... Blizzard has set it up so you can jump into raiding immediately. Don't get bogged down with numbers and gear colors. Use these little shortcuts to supplement what you started out with, and then once you're healing comfortably at the higher levels, upgrades will come quickly and easily.

Good luck. And have fun out there.

Lumber mill: Tier 9 set bonus

2009-07-06T16:34:00.001-04:00

Fresh from the lumber mill:

News on the tier 9 set bonuses:

The resto druid tier 9 set bonus (2) = Increases the critical strike chance of your Nourish spell by 5%.

The resto druid tier 9 set bonus (4) = Your Rejuvenation ability now has a chance for its healing to be critical strikes.

The resto druid tier 9 idol = Each time your Rejuvenation spell deals periodic healing, you have a chance to gain 234 spell power for 9 sec.

Thoughts and feelings:

My first thoughts were, "oh no, not more crit." After all, critical strikes are out of your control. You can't save those big blooms for when you need them most, and having a 50/50 chance of Regrowth dropping a living seed on the MT in a "save the raid" situation isn't exactly ideal either. However, looking deeper at the two and four set bonuses, I'm starting to get excited. Not as excited as say my favorite Alliance druid (Quote: "EEEEEE." ~Averna), but still I'm feeling the love.

A 5% boost to Nourish crit makes 3/3 living seed even more of a must have talent. Chances are if you're running around in T9 your guild will be calling on you to single target heal every now and again, so a short cast, mana efficient, direct heal that gets better with HoTs will certainly make your life a little bit easier. Would I rather have improved MP5 or a reduced mana cost on lifebloom? Yes. But Nourish is clearly the tool Blizzard wants us using, and as of now, it's not looking to shabby.

As for the four set bonus, color me intrigued. HoT crit is kind of an insane proposition. I'm very interested to see how often it will proc, and if it procs often (say once/twice every Rejuv) I'll happily file T9 gear under the category of OP. Any more than that and you'd have to call it cheating, any less than that I might be wishing the T9 idol were the set bonus so I can keep my old idol and save some mana. Regardless, I hope a. that HoT crit is the new direction Blizzard is taking for resto druids and b. that it doesn't start and end with this tier set.

For Blood and Honor: Razorscale

2009-07-02T22:50:00.002-04:00

Emerging from the smoking pile of debris, our brotherhood of the Horde ride unabashed into the next Ulduar courtyard. From this vantage point, the massive size of the complex becomes far more apparent. From the west, the molten sting of sulfuric air assaults my nostrils… two fire golems guarding whatever fiery hell awaits our guild. To the North, the unmistakable sound of scrap bots hard at work echoing down a vast hall. My eyes narrow to pull focus on the mechanical silhouettes against the bright glare of welding torches, then grow wider at the first glimpse of the steel giant that stirs in the furthest lengths of my vision. Tales of Deconstructor had not passed through our group unnoted. The feeling of inevitability drapes over me like a shroud. But as the whir of the bots fade into white noise, a far more menacing sound emerges from the East. Large… fiery… wings.

We came upon a group of Dwarves in a state of controlled panic… four turrets sitting conspicuously off kilter at the stair landing. Their plan of attack was unspoken but clear, as was the reason they hesitated. Tools of construction were at the ready on their belts, tools of destruction, however, were not in their possession. Not yet, anyway. My mouth smirked as my eyes scanned from Whippet, to Kwaggmire, to Pinko, to Pothek. "If destruction is what they seek," I thought to myself "this arsenal will gladly deliver."

Instinct had pushed me and my companions to a spot between the Dwarves and the stalking menace in the sky… eyes fixed on the target, the other senses inspected the scene around us. Weapons were drawn, mouths were salivating… and we waited. While confidence had made us bold, conquest had made us calculated… and rightfully so. Elissis, a soft spoken blood elf priest, moves among our hardened group of fighters as our gentle voice of reason. “Let’s get some buffs.” she said plainly as if it were a personal request spoken directly to each one of us. The immediate casting of buffs that followed from the raid very quickly exposed her request as an order, to those who were watching. My gift of the wild had already been given, so I cast thorns on Tazanian… because I know it amuses him. The Dwarves grow anxious with each passing moment, but we continue to wait… patiently and at the ready… for the one who leads us.

Akulu arrives to our group as most rogues of his caliber do… largely undetected. No sooner do I find him at the front of our ranks than do I hear him talking of razorscale and what terrors he brings. I’m growing wise enough not to bother wondering where this rogue gains his knowledge of such things, so instead I turn an ear and listen. Each thundering flap of wings pumps adrenaline through my bark as our guild leader lays out his plan. I take a moment to marvel at the grace of our new found enemy, and just as I wonder if this dragon willingly wears her heavy armor, I hear the Dwarves spring to action repairing those harpoons. It begins!

Dwarven mole machines bore through the floor. I pull focus on Saraella as she races in to meet them. How they fit the heart of a giant in this little paladin I will never know. One mob, now two, take swings at our tanks. I position myself near the center of the circle and cast rejuvenation on Sara and Taz. My spells tick once, maybe twice before Elissis and Alitharina heal those targets up completely. An ounce of relief creeps in as I scan the raid once finding no targets to heal.

"Can it be this easy?" Glancing up at Razorscale I catch a glimpse of a blue fireball just before its wrath takes a big chunk of my health, as well as my confidence. "Self heal, Beck!" I mutter, scolding myself. "Focus!" Another fireball rains from the sky over my companions… and then another. More adds arrive, assaulting Sara. Luhan and Sunmor mobilize to heal up the damage left by those flaming projectiles. I renew my HoTs on the two tanks in my range and begin to blanket the raid as I notice fire breath scorching the ground around us. Blue flame appears a moment later scorching… me! “Move!” barks Akulu, “Get out of the fire.” There's no need to tell this timber to run from the flame. My roots are already scrambling. Ali turns in my direction long enough to cast a quick heal. "Did she just wink at me?" I blush. Bloogan shouts, “The turrets are up!” almost too excitedly. A moment passes as if Akulu questions whether this course of action is just. His answer follows a moment later with just one word. “Fire.”

As Razorscale is forced to the earth, she receives our full attention. Taz stands eye to eye with the plated proto-drake, taunting her into giving him her best shot. Melee charges in, singeing their eyebrows for a moment as they come in contact with the remains of the fire breath she landed in, but quickly reposition themselves for what can best be described as a frenzied assault. Imphyy leads a ranged attack that lights up the sky with a fire show the likes of which I’m certain our Dwarf onlookers have never seen. I take a moment, with the other healers, to top off our group, then turn and roll my HoTs on our main tank just to make myself look busy. Temptation gets the better of me, as the voice in the back of my mind begins to chant "Moonfire. Wrath. Starfire. Hurricane." I give dps my best shot then unwittingly take a step back as Razorscale takes a deep breath in. "There's no way she…"

Before I finish my thought, a chained Razorscale springs to the air in one mighty leap, the results of which pulling the newly repaired turrets off of their bases. Our raid group is temporarily hurled into the sky by the force of air sent down by her mighty wings. Instinct has me back in Tree of Life form casting wild growth on the nearest tank before any of us fall back to the ground. More mole machines appear, Razorscale vengefully hurls more fireballs in our direction, the dwarves hurry again to repair their harpoons, and the fight continues much like it had before we brought her down to earth. She’s hurt and she’s angry, and if we’re going to live to see the sun set on this day, we’re going to have to pull her down to us once again.

Chaos now reigns in this corner of Ulduar. Fire riddles the ground claiming some of our numbers. Heavy heals prevent whirl winds and chain lightnings from claiming more souls, but the turrets are up, and a much angrier version of our foe is about to reek havoc on this fray.

With no time to destroy the dwarves attacking our main tank, Taz turns his back and resumes his staring match with Razorscale, again eye to eye, this time with adds in tow. Every spell in my arsenal is being utilized now. There are merely moments, not seconds, for me to cast out lifeblooms and wildgrowths between regrowths and nourishes. Razorscale is grounded for good, and is being led by Taz around the room, but the heat from her breath is beginning to fuse his armor. Ome has picked a fight with all the adds now and is keeping them occupied. Sara has positioned herself and is trying to rip Razorscales attention from Taz. The rest of us stand in the middle of this battle field doing our jobs, witnessing this proud beast rage.

Silence comes, at a cost. Those of us left standing quietly sift through the carnage left behind by this battle. Healers revive those comrades who were taken to the brink by Razorscale. The dwarven mechanics stare satisfactorily at their war machines as our proud group makes the way back up the stairs we descended from. Akulu stays behind for a moment, offering a pensive “Job well done.” to his faithful followers.

Back in the Ulduar courtyard, the once thunderous flap of proud wings is replaced by deafening silence. As I bow my head in honor of our fallen foe, a small smile crosses my face. The corner of my eye has caught the silhouette of a scrap bot hard at work. I turn my head to the North, now searching for the mechanical giant that waits at the end of this hall. “Craft away my friends,” I whisper to myself “those are the tools we plan to build our legacy with.”

Healing on the run: Hodir

2009-06-30T23:53:00.000-04:00

If you've been pulled into an Ulduar group, but you haven't had the time to watch the vids or read the blogs, here's a quick reference guide on what you *should* know about the Hodir fight. Good luck!

Hodir:

Note: In your video settings TURN ON PROJECTED TEXTURES!

The Fight:

Where to stand - Keep moving! You have to keep moving in this fight to avoid the stackable debuff, so stay in range of your tank but don't stand still for too long. {There are two occasions where you CAN stand still that I will discuss below}

What to watch for -

1. Frost Nova! - When Hodir begins to cast this, two large runes will appear on the ground. DO NOT stand in them but DO stand near them. Two snow drifts will fall from the ceiling filling these runes. Immediately after this happens run on to one of the piles. If you're left standing on the floor when Frost Nova finishes being cast, you will be ice blocked like the other NPCs in the room.

Note: While you're standing on a pile of snow you DO NOT have to keep moving. Use this to your advantage until the snow pile disappears and you fall back to the floor.

2. Frozen Blows! - Much like Deconstructor's Tantrum, Frozen Blows hit the entire raid for a huge amount of damage over time. Pre HoT as many people as you can while you can and use wild growth generously.

2. Biting Cold! - As I mentioned above, you cannot stand still for too long or you will start to gain a stackable debuff (much like the last boss in The Nexus). If you do get the debuff, you will have to keep moving 1 second for each stack you have before it disappears. And yes, it does hit very hard.

3. Icicles! - Small runes will appear on the floor throughout this fight indicating where icicles are going to fall. Do not stand in them or run through them. If you're hit with an icicle, you WILL feel it.

4. Frost traps. - Occasionally people will be frost trapped in place. This can be dangerous due to falling icicles and the Biting Cold debuff. Pay a little extra attention to the toons standing in traps and if you're the one trapped just shapeshift out of it.

5. Buffs. - The NPCs ice blocked in the room will help your raid once you free them. Use them to your advantage.

- Toasty Fire = Prevents the Biting Cold debuff. If you're standing near the fire you can cast without having to move.

- Starlight = 100% haste buff. If one of these is near a toasty fire, you're in business. If it isn't, however, try jumping up and down between casts to avoid the Biting Cold debuff.

- Storm Cloud = Crit buff. This buff is cast on one player at a time and affects everyone in range. If you get this buff, share it with as many toons as possible as you're running around the room.

6. Damage spikes. - As if everything else happening in this fight weren't enough, Hodir does hit pretty hard. Keep those HoTs rolling on the main tank and try to top him/her off before and after every Frozen Blows.

Should I freak? - YES! This may be the most difficult fight to heal in Ulduar. Healing on the run is what druids do better than any other class, but the heavy damage in this fight makes it impossible for you to get by on your HoTs alone. Use everything in your arsenal, pay attention to everything that's happening around you, and do everything you can to keep the raid up.

Healing on the run: Auriaya

2009-06-30T14:17:00.000-04:00

If you've been pulled into an Ulduar group, but you haven't had the time to watch the vids or read the blogs, here's a quick reference guide on what you *should* know about the Auriaya fight. Good luck!

Auriaya:

The Pull:

Where to stand - Stack on top of the tank and everyone else against the wall so Auriaya's kitties have no LoS on you. If they see you before they come around the corner, you're as good as dead.

What to watch for -

1. Pounce! - Auriaya's companions have a pounce ability that hits for huge damage. However, they can't use it if they're within 8 yards of the target. This is why the inital pull is so important. If everyone is standing in the right spot the pull will go smoothly and Pounce will not come into play.

Should I freak? - Not at all. Your raid either gets it right or they don't. Get those pre-HoTs going and prepare yourself for a long fight.

The Fight:

Where to stand - Stack with the raid. You do not want to get caught too far away from Auriaya's adds.

What to watch for -

1. Damage spikes! - Like the Iron Council fight, all of your tanks will be taking big hits throughout this encounter. Keep your HoTs up as much as possible and heal big as often as you can. As usual, if the tanks die, you die.

2. Silence! - Auriaya's defender will randomly pounce members of the raid locking out their spells. If you get pounced on there's really nothing you can do but wait it out... which is why it's so important to keep your HoTs up on the tanks.

3. Fear. - Auriaya frequently casts fear on the raid. It's a 2 second cast and it lasts only a few seconds. Get those HoTs rolling on the tanks when you see her start to cast it.

4. Void zones. - Auriaya will summon a defender during the fight that leaves a nasty little void zone that you do not want to stand in. Pay attention to where you are and keep casting.

Should I freak? - Maybe a little. Auriaya is yet another healing intensive fight, but for the most part you will just be standing and casting. Heal big, heal often, and try to anticipate her fear casts.

Healing on the run: Iron Council

2009-06-24T19:45:00.008-04:00

If you've been pulled into an Ulduar group, but you haven't had the time to watch the vids or read the blogs, here's a quick reference guide on what you *should* know about the Iron Council fight. Good luck!

Iron Council:

Kill order: Steelbreaker > Runemaster Molgeim > Stormcaller Brundir

Phase 1:

Where to stand - You'll run with the off tanks past Steelbreaker (the big guy up front) and stop short of Runemaster Molgeim in the middle of the room. Ideally you want to keep all three tanks in range, but that's not always possible. Stick to your assignment, but adjust your position to help other tanks as needed.

What to watch for -

1. Damage spikes! The main tank will be taking big damage from Steelbreaker until you down him, so whether he's your assigned tank or not, keep an eye on them and keep those hots rolling.
2. Brundir's overload! The off tank on Brundir will be kiting him around the room, periodically eating an overload. This is the only damage spike he/she takes, so watch for it, heal through it, and help out with raid heals in between. And for cryin' out loud, don't get close enough to be hit by it!

3. Chain lightning! As usual, the more this jumps the more it hurts. Your raid will interrupt this as often as possible, but when it does get cast, heal up, try to stay spread out, and don't panic. The damage spikes in this phase come slow enough to handle easily.

Should I freak? No. This fight is a survival fight, so healing big and healing often is the name of the game. However, healing is what you do best, so standing still and casting should be a walk in the park for you.

Phase 2:

Where to stand - Phase 2 starts when Steelbreaker dies. Move with the raid to a spot where everyone is in range and keep rolling those HoTs.

What to watch for -

1. Big green runes! You've seen runes before, but none like this. It's easily four times larger than what Molgeim has been putting down thus far, so if you're not running immediately after its cast underneath you, you likely won't make it out alive. Stop casting and move your roots as soon as you see one.

2. Lightning bolts. Molgeim will cast these nasty buggers on random toons. They hit pretty hard, so stay sharp with your wack-a-mole heals.

3. Brundir. Yes, Brundir is still running around, and yes he's still casting overload and chain lightning. This time, however, there are a lot more raid members in his range. Keep watching for overload and heal up anyone hit by it immediately. If chain lightning starts jumping around, raid heal your heart out.

Should I freak? Maybe a little. There's a lot going on at this stage in the fight, runes forcing you out of range of some of your raid members, people getting too close to one another, constant heavy damage on the main tank. You're still just standing and healing, but mana will start to become an issue and the more dps you lose, the longer this phase will take. Stay sharp and focus if you want to live.

Phase 3:

Where to stand - 10 yards or more from everyone else. In range of as many toons as possible.
What to watch for -

1. Lightning ornaments. The only thing new in this phase is the lightning tendril that Brundir will toss out to terrorize random toons. It's possible to heal through these, but if mana is an issue, you're better off running.

2. The same ol' same ol'. Stay out of the overload, watch your range, and heal, heal, heal your branches off.

Should I freak? Nah. If you made it this far, you either have the dps to finish the fight or you don't. This phase is basic tank and spank, so keep healing and hope that enough toons made it to this point alive to earn some sexy loots.

Healing on the run: Kologarn

2009-06-24T13:24:00.009-04:00

If you've been pulled into an Ulduar group, but you haven't had the time to watch the vids or read the blogs, here's a quick reference guide on what you *should* know about the Kologarn fight. Good luck!

Kologarn:

Where to stand - Ranged will stand in a line on the left side of the room. You will be at the start of this line in range of your tanks, melee, and every toon that goes running for their life.

What to watch for -

1. Eye beams! Kologarn will focus on random targets with two lasers from his eyeballs that will follow the target around for a few seconds. The reason everyone stands in a line is so that the targeted player can step forward or backward and run to the right side without dragging eye beams through the entire group. If you're the one with eye beams, step back, auto run to the right, and keep tossing out those HoTs. Remember to run back to your spot in line afterward.

2. Shockwave! Kologarn's left arm will periodically do an AoE that hits everyone in the raid pretty damn hard. With all the other damage being put out in this fight, EVERYONE has to be topped off after a shockwave a soon as possible.

3. Stone grip. Kologarn's right arm will randomly pick up a player and do heavy damage to them until the arm is damaged enough for Kologarn to let go. Who ever is picked up will need a healer's direct attention. Keep them alive, but don't get tunnel vision. There's a lot of other things going on you should be paying attention to.

4. Your tanks. Kologarn does heavy consistant damage to your tanks, as always keeping them up is priority #1. Also, two tanks will be passing Kologarn back and forth as they get the armor debuff. Your job is to pre-HoT the tank that is about to taunt and top off the tank that already has the debuff. You'll be healing to OOM in this fight, so don't be afraid to heal big and heal often.

5. Adds. An off tank will be picking up adds throughout this fight. Keep the tank up and watch for toons who gain aggro before the tank can taunt. Shockwave + loose adds = dead toons.

Should I freak? Yes! Kologarn is a healing intensive fight. With eye beams being dragged around the room, adds causing havoc, three targets constantly needing direct heals, and a shockwave that brings everyone below 50% health, you will have to be on the ball to survive this fight.

Thank you Blizzard

2009-06-22T15:52:00.004-04:00

In patch 3.2 "Any dungeons that drop Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead."

Wow.

Let me start off by saying "I sympathise 100% with everyone who put the effort into progressing through heroic Ulduar to earn their conquest emblems the hard way." Your feats are not cheapened by patch 3.2.

That being said... thank you Blizzard.

I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that in recent weeks (after the discovery of warcrafter.net) this druid became preoccupied with gear scores and server rankings. Once a casual player, I found myself raiding more and more, keeping my evenings free to try and pug into any Ulduar/VoA/EoE runs that I could, all in the pursuit of newer flashier sexies. The game was no longer a game, it was one big farming session, all for the satisfaction of reaching higher and higher scores on some website that had little to do with... anything.

Somewhere along the line I lost sight of what made WoW fun to play in the first place. Now that Blizzard is handing out conquest emblems like candy on Halloween, I realize that the satisfaction came from struggling through long and difficult boss fights (before several nerfs) not from the slight upgrade from 213 to 226.

It's time to get back to healing. Forget about topping recount lists or being the best geared druid on your server. Focus on being the best healing druid on your server and it won't matter what everyone else is wearing (or how they got it).

Thank you Blizzard... for the wake up call.

Healing on the run: XT-002 Deconstructor

2009-06-19T17:18:00.010-04:00

If you've been pulled into an Ulduar group, but you haven't had the time to watch the vids or read the blogs, here's a quick reference guide on what you *should* know about the XT-002 Deconstructor fight. Good luck!

Deconstructor:

Phase 1:

Where to stand - Your raid leader will most likely assign you to either the left or right side. Which ever side it is, line yourself up with Deconstuctor's corresponding foot and make sure the main tank and melee group are in your range.

What to watch for -

1. Damage spikes! Deconstructor will hit your main tank hard right off the bat. Make sure you have your tank pre-hotted before the pull, and keep those heals coming as you're moving into position.

2. Tymphatic Tantrum! This nasty AoE is a damage over time spell that hits everyone in the raid and hits them hard. You absolutely need to get everyone topped off after one of these as another tantrum will be soon to follow.

3. Gravity bomb. This debuff is on a timer. Who ever gets it must move 20 yards away from anyone else in the raid or else they will be pulled together doing damage to all affected. Who ever gets this debuff must also be topped off before they move out of range because it does a fair amount of damage when it procs.

4. Light well. The second debuff Deconstructor will cast on random targets. Who ever has this debuff must also move away from the raid, but not nearly as far as with gravity bomb. Only people standing in the light well graphic will be affected. It's a DoT so hotting up the person affected with it will be fine.

Should I freak? - No. Phase 1 can get a little hairy if tantrums come at bad times, but if you use your HoTs effectively, you should have no trouble keeping the raid going.

Phase 2: Heart phase.

Where to stand - You will stand in the same spot you were in phase 1.

What to watch for -

1. Scrap bots! These little adds will emerge from the four scrap piles in the corner of the room and head straight for Deconstructor. Each bot that reaches him will repair him, returning a certain percentage of his hp. Your job is to keep everyone topped off during this phase, but if you see scrap bots getting close to deconstructor, don't hesitate to use your stomp or cast hurricane on them.

2. His heart. At the start of phase 2, there will be no adds, no tantrums, no debuffs, just his heart. After you have everyone topped off, feel free to do some dps on the heart as it does double damage to the boss at the end of the phase.

3. Bomb bots. Along with the scrap bots, bomb bots emerge from the four scrap piles during this phase. They explode when killed, so don't get too close to these guys.

4. Off tanks. Pummelers are the third and final type of add in this phase. They will be picked up by the off tanks and pretty much ignored by everyone else, eventually dying from AoE. They don't hit hard, but if they're still up during a tantrum your off tanks will need to be healed up immediately.

5. Phase 1. The heart phase begins when Deconstructor reaches 75% hp and lasts for 20 seconds. Once it ends you will return to phase 1 until Deconstructor reaches 50% hp, then again at 25% hp. Be on your toes at the start and end of a new phase as that is when the fight is most hectic.

Should I freak? - No. Deconstructor is a dps fight. Tantrums will certainly keep you on your toes, but you're a druid... raid healing is what you do best. Other than when you're debuffed, you can basically stand in one spot and heal for the entire fight.

Healing on the run: Ignis

2009-06-18T15:06:00.008-04:00

If you've been pulled into an Ulduar group, but you haven't had the time to watch the vids or read the blogs, here's a quick reference guide on what you *should* know about the Ignis fight. Good luck!

Ignis:

Where to stand - In the middle of the room between the two pools of water. The main tank will kite Ignis in a square around you, so you should only have to strafe left and right to get in range of melee and your off tanks.

What to watch for -

1. Flame vents. These shoot up from the ground throwing everyone into the air. If you're casting a spell (not including instant casts) when these are set off, you'll be silenced for 8 seconds. So obviously you want to stay away from Regrowth, Nourish, etc... when Ignis begins to cast these. Also, the entire raid will take damage from flame vents so get those HoTs rolling.

2. Slag pot. Ignis will randomly pick up a player and throw them in his slag pot. Who ever he picks up will need some attention as the slag pot puts out a big amount of damage over time. If you're the one thrown in the pot, you can heal yourself and anyone else in range while you're in there. When he drops you out of the pot, run back to your starting point and try to avoid running through scorched ground.

3. Your off tanks. There is no enrage timer on Ignis, but for each construct that is running around he gains 20% damage. Its your off tanks job to make these guys brittle, which means spending a good deal of time standing in Ignis' AoE and taking a pounding from the constructs themselves. Keeping both of your off tanks up is the only way to win this fight.

4. Constructs. These adds have a nasty habit of getting away from their off tanks... at least for a little while. Keep an eye on these buggers and be ready to direct heal any toon they run after.

Should I freak? - Yes! This is a healing intensive fight and you need to be everywhere at the right time. The main tank will be taking heavy damage from start to finish, so even if you're raid heals you'll be topping the MT off quite a bit, especially near the end of the fight. Also, flame vents happen frequently, so keeping everyone up will be a full time job.

Twig Heals: 101 - Gift of the Earthmother (pre 3.3)

2009-06-17T19:48:00.007-04:00

Lesson 3: Gift of the Earthmother

At the end of the restoration tree there’s a talent that a lot of druids may not fully understand. It’s a 5 point talent that seems to benefit three very important healing spells, but if you’re new to level 80 or just a casual player you’re probably not 100% certain about how or why. That talent is called Gift of the Earthmother, and this blog will help you decide if it’s a gift you’ll want to return.

Before we can discuss what GotE does, we have to understand what a global cooldown (GCD) is. Basically, GCD is the time we have to wait after casting one spell before we can cast again. I’m sure you’ve noticed that you can’t just turbo click on lifebloom and have it cast every time. With zero haste and zero talents, that GCD is 1.5 seconds… and it can seem like an eternity if/when we’re in a pinch. GotE reduces that GCD on your rejuvenation, lifebloom, and wildgrowth spells by 4% to 20% depending on how many points you spend.

Is it worth it? Let’s dive in deeper. With zero haste, GotE will have the following affect on rejuvenation, lifebloom and wild growth…

1 point = GCD of 1.44 seconds
2 points = GCD of 1.38 seconds
3 points = GCD of 1.32 seconds
4 points = GCD of 1.26 seconds
5 points = GCD of 1.2 seconds

Three tenths of a second might not seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it’s a noticeable difference. Especially in those hairy moments when you’re trying to HoT up as many targets as possible before a raid wide damage spike occurs.

Well then, that settles it. Gift of the earthmother is worth getting… right?

Not so fast. Before you go spending 5 talent points, let’s step out of the zero haste bubble and step into the real WoW world. Chances are if you’re a raiding tree who’s considering this talent, you’ve managed to acquire a haste rating somewhere along the way. Assuming that’s the case, the GCD on ALL your spells is already under 1.5 seconds. If you’re curious just how far under, here’s a rough formula to help you figure it out.

GCD = 1.5 – ((Haste/32.79)*.015)

I know, I know, this is getting kind of technical. Let me try to simplify. In mostly Naxx 25 gear, my haste rating is 374. If I plug that into the formula, my GCD is approximately 1.33 seconds. And that’s with zero points in GotE. Not too shabby. My GCD is already roughly where it would be with 3 points in GotE and zero haste. Am I going to notice a difference if I spend my talent points on top of what my haste gives me?

Short answer: Maybe, maybe not.

With diminishing returns, I would need 5 points in GotE and a haste rating of 505 to lower my GCD to 1 second flat (505 is the oft discussed haste “cap” and 1 second is the lowest GCD you can have). That same haste rating with zero points in GotE would give me roughly 1.27 seconds on my GCD. Allowing for human reaction time, the duration of a single mouse click, down time in battle, and all the other spells we utilize, how many more casts will you realistically gain during a typical boss fight? Remember, you’re spending 5 talent points to earn those “extra” casts.

The down falls of GotE are these. First and fore most, it costs up to 5 talent points. With living seed, revitalize, natural perfection, etc, already begging for talent points, is 3 tenths of a second really THAT noticeable. Second, GotE reduces your base global cooldown ONLY after you cast rejuvenation, lifebloom or Wild Growth. If you throw a nourish or a swiftmend in there, you’re going to have to wait the full GCD to cast again. Third, GotE deals in tenths of a second… no matter how you slice it. Are you that precise with your casts that you can utilize those tenths every time in real WoW situations?

In my opinion, Gift of the Earthmother is looking more and more like its headed for the customer service returns line. There’s certainly a place for this talent with under geared druids who have little haste and need to stick to spell power and spirit gems if they’re going to raid successfully. But if you’re an established raiding tree, have the means to even consider approaching the haste “cap” and are considering this talent, I would advise you to pass on it unless you absolutely do not want revitalize, natural perfection, living seed, and living spirit.

Just one tree’s opinion.

Healing on the run: Razorscale

2009-06-17T17:28:00.015-04:00

If you've been pulled into an Ulduar group, but you haven't had the time to watch the vids or read the blogs, here's a quick reference guide on what you *should* know about the Razorscale fight. Good luck!

Razorscale:

Phase 1:

Where to stand - You'll want to be near the middle of the circle, shading to the left, center or right, depending on where your assigned tank is picking up the adds.

What to watch for -

1. Flame breath! If you see a blue ball fall on your head or blue flames covering the ground, run! Trees and fire do not mix.

2. Fire balls. Razorscale throws these down at random toons quite frequently. They hit marginally hard. Healing through these is truly like wack-a-mole.

3. Chain lightning. As always, chain lightning hurts if you're not spread out. Watch your range and hope everyone else does as well.

Should I freak? - No. Phase 1 moves at a fairly slow pace. Use your down time to conserve mana and to keep an eye out for blue flame.

Phase 2:

Where to stand - Anywhere EXCEPT for in front of Razorscale. She doesn't have a tail whip, so when she comes down to the ground you can move freely behind her and to the sides to throw your heals out.

What to watch for -

1. Main tank damage. This phase of the fight is basically tank and spank. Keep your main tank topped off and watch your off tanks while they hold the adds.

2. Deep breath. If your raid doesn't get Razorscale down to 50% health in a certain amount of time, she will fly back up out of reach and you'll start phase 1 again. When this happens, she'll toss everyone in the raid into the air doing a little bit of fall damage. It's easy to recover from, so hustle back to your spot and pick up where you left off.

Should I freak? - No. Phase two is all about rolling HoTs on your tanks. If there are adds up or if there's a flame breath in the middle of the circle things could get interesting. Otherwise, it's a piece of cake.

Phase 3:

Where to stand - In the middle of the circle again. Your main tank will be kiting Razorscale around the raid, so as long as you stay in the middle you won't take much damage.

What to watch for -

1. Your main tank! Razorscale hits hard and hits consistently in this phase. Get all of your tanks topped off and keep them there until the fight ends.

2. Fuse armor. Your tanks will get this debuff as they engage Razorscale. Eventually they will stack to the point where another tank has to taunt off this boss. When that happens, switch your focus immediately to the new tank.

3. Adds. There will likely still be some dwarf adds running around. Your off tanks will be picking them up, so you'll need to give them some love.

4. Wing buffet. At the start of phase 3, Razorscale will knock everyone back doing a fair amount of damage to the raid. You'll have bigger fish to fry at this point, but you should get everyone topped off sooner rather than later.

Should I freak? - Still no. Phase three is the hardest part of this fight, but as long as you're paying attention to which tank has aggro your job is easy. Watch your mana, and try to toss an innervate out to a priest or shaman near the end of this fight.

Razorscale is probably the easiest boss to heal in Ulduar. However, it also gives you a taste of how important it is to pay attention to where you are standing. If EVERYONE stays out of the blue flame, this fight is straight forward. Have fun in there!

Twig Heals: 101 - Out of the forest and into the talent trees

2009-06-12T13:38:00.013-04:00

Twig Heals: Talent breakdown

This talent guide is by no means a resto build. I'll try to explain what each talent does and how it can be useful to raid healing. I'll even go so far as to tell you which talents I believe are a must have. But, where you spend your points is ultimately up to you.

If you want to compare your build with my own, you can look me up here:

http://lightninghoof-us.warcrafter.net/Beck

::RESTORATION TREE::

First Branch--

Furor: This talent helps generate rage in bear form, energy in cat form, and total intellect in moonkin form, but it does absolutely nothing for Tree of Life form. No resto druid should have points in this talent... ever. SKIP IT.

Improved Mark of the Wild: Increases the effects of MotW by 40% and your total attributes by 2%. This is a nice little buff for you and your friends, and while it doesn't do much to help your healing, you have no choice but to spend points here if you plan on moving up to the next branch in the talent tree.

Nature's Focus: Reduces push back suffered from dmg while casting Healing Touch, Wrath, Roots, Cyclone, Nourish, Regrowth, and Tranquility by 70%. For raid healers, this shouldn't come into play much, but again, the only way to get the required 5 points to advance in the resto tree is by spending points here.

Second Branch--

Natural Shapeshifter: Reduces the mana cost of all shapeshifting by 30%. I'm sure you're asking yourself at this point, when do these talents start helping my heals? The answer is "Soon". This talent is a pre-req for a very helpful talent that's coming up in the next branch. Spend your 3 points here and be patient.

Subtlety: Reduces threat by 10%, 20%, or 30% (depending on how many points you spend) and also reduces the chance your helpful spells will be dispelled. Threat is usually not a problem, but there are occasions when a raid starts to go bad and OTs are scrambling to regain aggro... on those occasions you'll be glad you have this. (If it were anywhere else in the tree, I'd say skip it. But you need to spend 2 points somewhere to move up in the talent tree... and its either this or Naturalist).

Naturalist: Reduces the cast time of your Healing Touch spell by 0.1 to 0.5 seconds (depending on how many points you spend). At a glance it would seem like this is the best talent so far in the tree, and you'll probably be tempted to put 5 points here. Don't. There's a talent coming up that will make your Healing Touch an instant cast, and it will only cost you 1 point instead of 5 to do it. Spend 2 points here if you absolutely do not think Subtlety is beneficial, but trust me when I tell you any points you put in Naturalist beyond what you need to advance in the tree are points you'll wish you had back later on.

Note on Naturalist: There is a very specific resto build out there that basically turns Healing Touch into a Flash of Light for druids (using talents and glyphs). If you choose to take that approach, then you will be spending 5 points here.

Third Branch--

Master Shapeshifter: Increases healing by 4% in Tree of Life form (requires 3 points in Natural Shapeshifter). This is your first true healing buff and the reason you spent 3 points in Natural Shapeshifter. Essentially you're spending 5 points for a 4% increase, but in my opinion its the best way to progress through this tree.

Intensity: Allows 50% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting. This is one of many talents that make druids so mana efficient. Spend your three points here and start counting the thank yous you receive from priests and shammys when you save your innervate for THEM.

Omen of Clarity: Any cast or attack has a chance of causing you to enter a clearcasting state, which reduces the mana cost of your next spell by 100%. One point here grants you a free cast every time it procs... and trust me when I tell you it procs all the time. You already have 5 points spent in this branch of the tree, but spend 1 point here. You'll be glad that you did.

Fourth Branch--

Improved Rejuvenation: Increases the effect of your Rejuvenation spell by 15%. This is your second true healing buff, and while it only effects one of your spells, its probably the spell you'll be casting most often. Three points here are well worth it.

Tranquil Spirit: Reduces the mana cost of your Healing Touch, Nourish, and Tranquility spells by 2% to 10% depending on how many points you spend. At this point you only need one point to progress to the next branch in the tree, but take a minute here and think about how often you cast these three spells. If you're still unsure if the 10% mana reduction is worth 5 points here, just spend the one and consider coming back to this at the end of your build.

Fifth Branch--

Nature's Swiftness: When activated, your next Nature spell becomes an instant cast (Requires 3 points in Intensity. 3 minute cooldown). This talent is the reason I skipped the 5 points in Naturalist. One point here makes your biggest heal (Healing Touch) an instant cast. This is a raid saver and makes me wish I could donate more talent points to it just because it is that awesome.

Note on Nature's swiftness: Your instant casts do NOT consume nature's swiftness. You can activate this and it will wait indefinitely for you to cast Healing Touch, Nourish, or other nature spell that isn't an instant cast.

Gift of Nature: Increases the effect of all healing spells by 10%. Pure, unadulterated healing buff at your disposal here. You only need 4 more points to proceed to the next branch in the tree, but you're daft if you don't spend 5 points here.

Improved Tranquility: Reduces threat caused by tranquility by 50% or 100% and reduces the cooldown by 30% or 60%. Druids who are new to healing seem to love the idea of tranquility. And if this spell effected the entire raid instead of only your group, then by all means I'd be telling you to give this talent some thought. But, alas, this spell only effects 4 targets (besides yourself), costs 78% of your base mana to cast, and won't be available to use more than once a fight even with the 60% reduced cooldown (4 minutes). Don't spend any points here. I guarantee you'll be wishing for those points back if you do.

Sixth Branch--

Nature's Bounty: Increases the critical effect chance of your Regrowth and Nourish spells by 5% to 25% depending on how many points you spend here (requires 3 points in Improved Rejuvenation). There's a talent coming up that will proc every time one of these heals crit... which makes this talent very useful. The question here isn't whether you should spend points on this talent, the question is how many points should you spend. Two points will be enough to get you to the next branch (assuming you take Empowered Touch), but an extra 15% in crit chance for these two mainstay spells might certainly be worth the extra 3 points. Spend two here for now, and come back to this later to see if you have the points to spend.

Empowered Touch: Your Healing Touch spell gains an additional 40% of your bonus healing effects. Getting this talent is like having a trinket without wearing a trinket. Whether you're raid healing or single target healing, you want your biggest spell to heal as big as possible. We're going to spend a few points later on to buff up the crit rate of Healing Touch, so why not let this monster cast meet its full potential. Two points here are well worth it.

Seventh Branch--

Swiftmend: Consumes a Rejuvenation or Regrowth effect on a friendly target to instantly heal them an amount equal to 12 sec. of Rejuvenation or 18 sec. of Regrowth (15 sec. cooldown). This is a must have, along with the Swiftmend Glyph. Most people wrongly assume that druids are not great single target healers. Everyone looks at us and sees HoTs and party heals. This is one talent that proves them all wrong. Nature's swiftness + Healing Touch + Regrowth + Swiftmend + Nourish + HoTs = out healing any whirlwind, hateful strike, slag pot, what have you... without breaking a sweat. This might be the best point you've ever spent.

Living Spirit: Increases your total spirit by 5% to 15%. Some druids don't like this talent even though spirit will effect healing spell power in tree of life form as well as mana regeneration while casting. The choice here is yours. You certainly have some options to go back to that will allow you to progress to the next branch in this tree without this talent. If your mana pool is a problem, consider this a little crutch. But, if you'd rather have crit or haste and want to fore go the extra healing power in ToL, then by all means skip it.

Natural Perfection: Your critical strike chance with all spells is increased by 1% to 3% and critical strikes against you gives you the Natural Perfection effect reducing all damage taken by 2% to 4% (stacks up to 3 times and lasts 8 seconds). Make no mistake, this is a PVP talent. Raid druids who are haste capped and looking for a little boost to crit can spend points here, but don't expect the damage mitigation to help you while raiding. If you're getting crit enough for this to stack, you won't be living long enough to enjoy its effects. This talent is 100% optional..

Eight Branch--

Empowered Rejuvenation: The bonus healing effects of your healing over time spells is increased by 20%. Yeah baby. Another pure healing buff that you're crazy to pass up. Spend five points here without blinking.

Living Seed: When you critically heal your target with Swiftmend, Regrowth, Nourish or Healing Touch, you have a 33% to 100% chance to plant a living seed on the target for 30% of the amount healed. The living seed will bloom when the target is next attacked (lasts 15 sec.). Here's another nice little single target heal that makes raid druids so versatile. If you pick up all of the crit talents in this tree (which I think you will) and you spend 3 points here, you'll basically be buffing these 4 spells by 30%. You won't need this talent to progress through the tree, but you'd be hard pressed to find a better place to spend these 3 points if you ask me.

Ninth Branch--

Tree of Life: Reduces the mana cost of your HoTs by 20% and grants the ability to shapeshift into the Tree of Life form. While in ToL form you increase healing received by 6% for all party and raid members within 45 yards and can only cast resto spells, in addition to Innervate, Barkskin, Nature's Grasp, MotW, and Thorns. You're finally here... woot! Trees are for hugging, and this talent will bring you plenty of them. One point here to join the ranks of tree for lifers worldwide.

Improved Tree of Life: Increases the armor contribution from items in ToL form by 67% to 200% and increases your healing spell power by 5% to 15% of your spirit while in ToL form. In my opinion, this talent makes you the best tree you can be. You need this boost to healing spell power to justify raiding in this form and limiting yourself solely to restoration spells, in my opinion. If you're curious how much the spirit boost helps your toon, just look at your attributes and calculate the difference between your spell power and your healing bonus while in tree form. That's how much SP you gain from these 3 little points.

Revitalize: Your Rejuvenation and Wild Growth spells have a 5% to 15% chance to restore 8 energy, 4 rage, 1% mana or 16 Runic Power per tick. Often lost among the excitement of reaching Tree of Life form, is this excellent raiding talent. Wild Growth ticks 7 times on up to 5 targets (without the glyph) and Rejuvenation ticks 12 times (also without the glyph). That equals 42 chances for this talent to proc, which it will an average of 6 times. And that's just from two little casts. Can you imagine how much it will proc. in the course of a boss fight? This is by no means an necessity, but this is the type of talent that makes trees so well loved in raiding guilds.

Tenth Branch--

Gift of the Earthmother: (Patch 3.3) This talent now increases your spell haste by 2% to 10% as well as reduces the base global cooldown on Lifebloom by the same amount. This is now a must have, imo, for all raiding druids. A straight haste buff here is more worthy of your five talent points than any other talent available at this point in your build.

Improved Barkskin: Increases the damage reduction granted by your barkskin spell by 5% or 10% and increases resistance to dispel mechanics by 30% to 60% while under the effects of barkskin. Also grants 80% additional armor while in travel form or not shape shifted. That's a very long spell description for a very short synopsis. SKIP THIS TALENT. (This is purely for PVP).

Eleventh Branch--

Wild Growth: Heals up to 5 friendly party or raid members within 15 yards of the target every second for 7 seconds with diminishing returns on each tick. This talent can be frustrating at times because you have no control over what five targets get the heal. You'll see this applied to pets, you'll see it applied to targets at full hp, you'll even see it applied only to 1 target instead of 5. But, as kooky as it is, it is most definitely worth the one point to add to your arsenal. Don't leave for a raid without it.

At this point you should have 20 points or so left to spend. I know there are several tempting options you can't wait to get back to in the resto tree, but lets take a look at the balance tree for a moment, as there are some very useful talents to be had.

::BALANCE TREE::

First Branch--

Genesis: Increases all damage and healing done by your peroidic damage and healing effects by 5%. Wow, a pure healing buff right off the bat. The resto tree could learn a thing or two from this tree. Spend 5 points here... it gets better.

Starlight Wrath: Not for us. SKIP IT.

Second Branch--

Moonglow: Reduces the mana cost of your Moonfire, Starfire, Starfall, Wrath, Healing Touch, Nourish, Regrowth and Rejuvenation spells by 9%. Are you kidding me? How mana efficient do you want us to get? Answer: You can never be too mana efficient. Spend three points here right now!

Nature's Majesty: Increases the critical strike chance of your Wrath, Starfire, Starfall, Nourish, and Healing Touch spells by 4%. Yet another crit bonus to Nourish and Healing Touch. You've got two points to spend, and I know you can't wait to see what's waiting for you in the next branch.

Improved Moonfire: Increases the damage and critcal strike chance of your moonfire spell by 5% or 10%. I know you secretly want to dps, but you're a tree now and you don't need (and shouldn't want) this. SKIP IT.

Third Branch--

Nature's Splendor: Increases the duration of your moonfire and Rejuvenation spell by 3 seconds, your Regrowth spell by 6 seconds, and your insect swarm and lifebloom spells by 2 seconds. This talent used to be a no brainer. After all, a longer HoT is a better HoT! But with the increased mana cost of lifebloom, some druids want to get to the "bloom" sooner rather than later (seeing as they won't be stacking 3 of them any more). I personally still think the talent is well worth 1 point, but the choice ultimately is up to you.

Nature's Grace: All spell criticals have a 33% to 100% chance to grace you with a blessing of nature, increasing your spell casting speed by 20% for 3 seconds. Interesting proposition here. You can buff your spell casting speed everytime you crit with a heal... and given all the talents you have already, you will be critical healing constantly. Is it worth 3 points to you? Personally I think there are better places to spend these points back in the resto tree, but there are countless 14/0/57 druids who would argue otherwise.

Brambles: Increases the damage done by your Thorns and Entangling Roots spells by 25% to 75%. This is another interesting proposition for raiding druids. Over the course of a boss fight, 75% more damage from thorns can account for a good amount of damage as well as improved threat when given to a tank. The question here is, will it be useful/noticable in your raids and is it worth the talent points? The decision, as always, is yours.

There's no need to look further in the Balance tree for Resto talents. Whether you've spent 11 or 14 points here depends on your preference. You should still have 6 to 9 points left to spend and a few useful talents to be revisited in the resto tree. Use them wisely, and try to tailor them to your style of play and to your gear. Remember when you're considering buffing your spell haste, a 1 sec. global cooldown is the lowest you can go, and if you spend on Gift of the Earthmother, a 505 haste raiting is your cap (unbuffed).

I hope this helps!

For Blood and Honor: Flame Leviathan

2009-06-11T10:17:00.004-04:00

A streak of white traces the wake of a missile across the black Ulduar sky. Leaning back in my chair I remember the scene from last July 4th in Booty Bay… a place I’m no longer welcome. A pyrite barrel floats silently across my line of sight and I watch as more streaks of white rise up to meet it. The pyrite drops uneventfully to earth and my eyes watch it come to rest in front of the last remaining Colossus in the courtyard.

“Let’s get a ready check.” a voice declares. I lean forward in my seat as our guild master continues. “The gate opens after this pull.” I angle my demolisher to the left, aiming my cannon in the middle of the last group of defenders guarding the steel gate. Akulu’s voice again cuts the silent air, “Passengers, get ready to load into the catapult when Flame Leviathan comes out.” I postulate that our rogue leader gained this information from Brann earlier at the base camp… but I'm far from certain. “How else could he know?” I ask myself reaching down to my trigger. There’s no more time to wonder as the first missile lights up the last Colossus like a lantern.

The defenders die much like those before them and we form up in front of the gate waiting for it to swing open. I turn my head and listen for the familiar click of turning gears. Nothing. “Maybe we…” A jolt stops my thought dead in its tracks as a mammoth machine explodes through the gate splintering steel as if it were timber. Flame Leviathan jerks to a halt, grill to grill with our now seemingly undersized tanks. We scatter. Left or right, it doesn’t matter. Anything too…

“Stay away from it!” Akulu exclaims. “Let’s launch some people up there to take out those turrets.” Leviathan turns to pursue one of our siege engines. “Shields!” Kwaggmire barks at his gunner. “Shields up!” he repeats. I turn my demolisher to square up with Leviathan. “Quiver this.” I mutter to myself as Pothek is catapulted into the night. “And please don’t miss.”

The tactical war rages as Flame Leviathan takes turns chasing each of us around this fenced in corner of the courtyard. We’re moving as a unit now. Choppers drop oil slicks around our kite path, siege engines ignite those slicks as our foe approaches them, demolishers keep their distance sending a barrage of fireballs crashing down on top of it. “Interrupt those flame jets.” Our leader declares in a shockingly calm voice. “He’s close to a shutdown.” Right on queue Leviathan is stopped dead in his tracks. Pothek and the others assaulting the turrets are expelled into the air floating harmlessly down to earth in parachutes. I shout up to Pothek as I roll under him into position to fire my pyrite “Where the hell did you get a parachute?”

Broken machines litter different corners of this battle field. Sadly, my trusty demolisher is one of them. Smoke, fire, and my comrades rise from the ground as Akulu surveys the scrap heap that was once Flame Leviathan. “Nicely done, everyone.” he announces sifting through the wreckage. “Let’s move up.” Face down I lay exhaustedly waiting to be revived. “Is this place going to break me?” I wonder quietly to myself. Lifting my head I glance at a chopper riding by just in time to notice its license plate. Rising to my feet, I laugh to myself as I read it allowed. “Pwned.”

For Blood and Honor: Flame Leviathan (Trash)

2009-06-11T09:58:00.005-04:00

The rituals and practices of warlocks have always unsettled me, and my companion's are of no exception. I've trusted my life to Ressengan more times than I care to admit, yet I still avert my gaze from the eerie darkness and unnatural forces that boil behind his blood elf eyes whenever he brings forth his summoning portal. "Beck, come channel." he requests in a familiar friendly voice. I comply, eyes squarely focused on my roots. A welcome change from that lock darkness is the mojo toting troll who so frequently emerges from this portal. Fresh from picking flowers in various corners of Northrend, we refer to this enigmatic shamman as Whippet... when we're not calling him more colorful names. "Who needs flasks?" he advertises shaking a bottle of endless rage at Kwaggmire. Our once scattered group gravitate in to greet him. Now that Whippet has arrived, we stand ready to begin our siege on Ulduar.

The expedition camp we find ourselves in is riddled with salvaged war machines. Demolishers to the east, siege engines to the west, Choppers enticing us straight ahead, all of which just begging for a test drive. We each take turns stealing glances at the beckoning vehicles while we await instruction from our fearless guild master. Akulu, as mysterious as he is unassuming, speaks privately with Brann Bronzebeard before addressing his faithful followers. Several of our group huddle around Whippet and his wares while I inch closer to a demolisher, hoping no one takes notice. My progress is halted with Akulu's return to our ranks.

His instructions are clear and concise.

Siege Engine Driver – ram down buildings, knock back enemies, and boost speed to move into or out of harm's way.
Siege Engine Gunner – bring down pyrite ammo, assault air borne enemies and assists in shooting targets on the ground. Ignite oil slicks with the anti-air missile as well.
Demolisher Driver – fire long-range fireballs and special pyrite barrels that deal massive damage. Catapult a passenger on to the tank that awaits us when the time comes.
Demolisher Gunner – salvage pyrite ammo and refill your demolisher, fire long-range fireballs and anti-air missiles, and boost speed to move into or out of harm's way.
Chopper Driver – create flammable oil slicks behind you and quickly pick up any players on foot to protect them from danger.

Gear ultimately affects the durability of the machine we choose to captain, but the talent of this group is such that all are capable of filling any role in this skirmish. The choice, as so often is the case, is left to us. My inching pays off as I make haste to the nearest demolisher and await the soul brave enough to ride along side me. Pothek is equal to the task and I quickly comment on how orcs make such wonderful projectiles. As we maneuver into position he promises to use me as a quiver should I over shoot with my catapult. The visual barely has time to form in my mind before the archmages drop their shield and I have my first glimpse of the gauntlet laid out ahead of us.

As sobering as it is vast, this awe inspiring courtyard is occupied by a sea of Steelforge Defenders and Ulduar Colossi... further than the eye can see. Storm beacons dot this expanse acting as control centers. My eyes widen at the sight of the first fireball being hurled from Akulu's war machine. I roll forward deliberately and poise my cannon to fire one of my own. We certainly have them stirring now... and this terrible gauntlet scrambles to action.

Straight ahead, we lay siege to this courtyard with reckless abandon. Waves of defenders flow out of nearby storm beacons until we reduce them to rubble. Colossi approach us slowly but methodically and we do not hesitate to give them our full attention. To the east, a tower of a different sort challenges us, guarded by more steelforge and an oversized mechanical spider whose stare cuts through our steel armor like butter. The machines we pilot are built for war, however, and much like exterminators we purge the courtyard of these pests, leaving more rubble in our wake.

The trip across the now cleared bridge offers a moment to rest my trigger finger and to take in the wide open battle field. Brann’s voice crackles over my radio with the sound of whirling propellers behind it. His voice goes silent a moment later, but the background noise lingers. “Must be an echo.” I think to myself as I continue over the bridge. Now growing louder, I straighten up in my seat. “What is that?” “Choppers to the left!” Akulu calls out. This takes a moment for me to register. “... the hell did he just say?” I mutter to myself unbelieving before I turn to look. Teams of helicopters swarm on us from above firing a barrage of missiles at my broad side. “Son of a…!” Panic is replaced by exhilaration as Pothek is already returning fire and proving convincingly he knows how to handle a turret. “I just like to shoot stuff” he reports modestly. My eyes focus forward now as we leave broken air ships behind and take aim on the second tower to the west.

Glowing discs on the ground deep into the court yard repair our worn tanks instantly, and after leaving our mark on the fourth and final tower we suspend our siege and wonder what manner of terror awaits us behind the steel gate taunting us from the back of the room.

Our wonder would be short lived as Ulduar's first big surprise makes its grand entrance...

Twig Heals: 101 - Bring the lumber

2009-06-07T13:47:00.007-04:00

Lesson 2: Direct heals

As great and as versatile as your HoTs are, they can't handle every situation you come across while raid healing. There will be times when a target needs a big heal, and they need it now. When you don't have time to wait for ticks, you have to bring out your direct heals. Direct heals, for those who don't know, are healing spells that do all of their healing in one shot... no ticking, no stacking, no waiting.
Let's take a look at our arsenal.

Healing Touch:

3 second cast (out of the box). With talents and gear, this spell can heal for roughly 12k, crit for 16k, and be cast instantly with the Nature's Swiftness ability. Some druids will tell you this spell should hardly ever used. They're wrong. The NS/HT combo saves a life atleast once per boss fight.

Over zealous hunter pulling aggro early? No problem. Finish stacking your HoTs on the MT, then bring the 'tard back from the brink with a 16k crit.

Main tank down with the boss at 10%? No worries, mate. Use this to keep your top DPS alive while the OT gets in there to taunt.

Everything going right in your raid? Grats! You can still use this spell to your advantage. Let your tank tick down to 50% hp while you HoT up those taking AoE damage, then pop HT to bring the tank back full.

Nourish:

1.5 second cast (out of the box). This is the druid version of flash of light. Without the nourish glyph, this spell heals for roughly 3.5k and crits for about 6k. With the glyph it heals for 6k, crits around 10k. This is your spam heal when you're single target healing, and trust me when I tell you, druids CAN single target heal extremely well. There are many talents in your build that will buff the crit rate of this puppy, and with 3/3 in living seed, one cast of this spell will pump out 13k healing. Not bad for a 1.5 second cast.

Swiftmend:

Instant cast (15 second cooldown). Can only be used on targets with Rejuvenation or Regrowth ticking on them. This spell is probably my favorite cast in the spellbook. Available every 15 seconds, it takes all the healing power of a rejuv or regrowth and delivers it to a target in one shot. And if you get the swiftmend glyph (which you're crazy if you don't) your HoTs will keep on ticking essentially doubling the healing power of rejuv and nearly doubling regrowth. Swiftmend heals for 8k (for me) and crits for 12k.

Breakdown: Compared to other classes, druid direct heals seem slightly underpowered... which is why most people think we're not great single target healers. But when used intelligently in conjunction with our HoTs, there really is no fight a druid can't main tank heal.

Twig Heals: 101 - Its getting HoTs in here...

2009-06-06T15:54:00.011-04:00

Note: For my fellow druids looking for a leveling guide, you won't find it here. The resto tree is quite simply not a good way to progress to level 80 quickly. This is just a quick overview of heal over time spells (HoTs) for those who are new to the restoration tree.

Lesson 1: HoTs

Regardless of how you reached level 80, you should have some understanding of your heal over time spells and how to use them. What I'm certain you'll notice when you start putting points into the restoration tree is that your HoTs are getting huge buffs. This is no coincidence. Use them early and use them often. Let's break them down to the twigs...

Rejuvenation:

Cast time - Instant
Cooldown - Global cooldown only
Mana cost - 18% of base mana {Reduced by the moonglow and tree of life talents}
Duration - 15 seconds {18 seconds with the Nature's Splendor talent}
Effect - Heals once every 3 seconds for its duration

Breakdown: Rejuvenation is your main pre-hotting spell. It lasts long enough and is mana efficent enough to roll on multiple targets constantly. It also 'arms' your swiftmend ability allowing you to instantly respond to damage spikes on anyone you've pre-hotted. With talents and gear, this spell can tic for 2k-3k hp (or 10k-15k over its duration).

Regrowth:

Cast time - 2 seconds
Cooldown - Global cooldown only
Mana cost - 29% of base mana {Reduced by the moonglow and tree of life talents}
Duration - 18 seconds {24 seconds with the nature's splendor talent}
Effect - Begins with a direct heal then heals once every 3 seconds for it's duration.

Breakdown: Used mainly as a direct heal, Regrowth can be used as a pre-hot when single target healing. However, the 2 second cast time and mana cost make it unwise to try to spam this heal across the raid. You will find that the direct heal/HoT combination make it an excellent first cast when trying to recover from huge damage (you can crit heal for roughly 8k and begin casting other spells while it tics for 1k every 3 seconds), but mana efficiency is the name of the game in raid healing, and this spell leaves much to be desired. This spell is being replaced by Nourish on many UIs.

Lifebloom:

Cast time - Instant
Cooldown - Global cooldown only
Mana cost - 14% base mana {Reduced by the tree of life talent}
Duration - 7 seconds {9 seconds with the nature's splendor talent}
Effect - Heals once every second for it's duration ending in a direct heal {stacks up to 3 times}

Breakdown: Lifebloom is another good pre-hotting spell. It's effectivness increases the more it stacks, however the increased mana cost make it difficult to stack constantly or on multiple targets. Your level of experience will impact the affectiveness of this spell. Knowing when and when not to stack or how to time the 'bloom' come with knowing when and where damage spikes occur in each boss fight. Lifebloom will tick for 500hp, 1k, or 1.5k and bloom for 5k, 10k, or 15k depending on how many times you stack it. A +20k crit is possible with this spell, but will be slightly less with the 3.2 patch (20% reduction).

Wild Growth:

Cast time - Instant
Cooldown - 6 seconds
Mana cost - 23% base mana {Reduced by the tree of life talent}
Duration - 7 seconds
Effect - Heals up to 5 raid members within 15 yards of the target ticking once every second for it's duration (with diminishing returns on each tick)

Breakdown: This is a must have spell for all raid healing druids. With the wild growth glyph you can heal 6 targets at the same time for around 4k hp when all is said and done. Its a great way to respond to AoE and raid wide damage. It's downfall is that you can't control which targets receive the heal. If you cast it on a toon and no one around them needs a heal, only the toon you cast it on will get the heal. It will land on pets, it will land on targets with full hp, it will drive you crazy, but it's worth it.

Overview: HoT healing is all about anticipation not reaction. These spells take time to work their magic (hence the name) so you will have to learn where and when damage comes in boss fights if you want to be able to heal them sucessfully. You'll also discover that the better you are at keeping these spells rolling the better your overall healing will be.

Every druid developes their own healing style. Some lead with Rejuv, some with LB, others with Regrowth. Some keep their HoTs ticking on as many targets as possible, others use their HoTs to bridge the cast time between direct heals. Either way, you'll learn what works best for you by getting out there and doing it. Good luck!

Identitree crisis: Starting out Druid

2009-06-06T15:05:00.001-04:00

Still fairly new to the world of MMORPGs, my first ever toon was a dwarf warrior named Speck. Like most who knew nothing about the game, I thought the Alliance were the "good guys" and that's what I wanted to roll. I was 15 levels in before I discovered the friend who told me about the game was not only playing on a different realm, but was part of the Horde. Begrudgingly I made the switch. Having no knowledge of races, classes, specs, ect… I merely perused the character screen, read the short blurb on race and class abilities and decided to roll a Tauren Druid.

Thus... Beck was born.

That was 3 years ago. Four guilds, nineteen re-specs, and eighty levels later, Beck continues to be my main and my favorite toon to play.

Some ask, "Why resto?" Short answer is... it suits me. Like most, I leveled to 70 as a feral druid. Shape shifting, dpsing, tank and travel forms, and survivalability are what hooked me on the druid life. And as fun as that was, I always found myself watching for toons around me who were in need of heals... throwing out buffs to all who crossed my path... even healing up guards early on in XR while high level Alliance made themselves feel special by ganking the town. Its just in my nature to help, so resto was the obvious choice.

There are plenty of boomchickens out there who swear that the balance tree is the best and truest tree for the druid race. Its there that you find a true mastery of nature's forces, and as most of us can attest to, mother nature packs one hell of a punch. Honestly, I hold the balance tree in high regard. I leveled through WotLK in moonkin form, and continue to dual spec boomchicken to this day. However, it boils down to one simple phrase. You either choose to restore or destroy... if you're reading this blog you know where I stand.