Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays everyone! I hope you all have a happy and safe holiday season and Greatfather Winter leaves you some nice gifts for Winter Veil!

I've got some posts lined up (and some days off from raids because of the holiday, so hopefully a bit of extra time to actually write!) so I'll be trying to get those up ASAP. Most of my spare time recently has been spent in-game, working on gear, profs, etc, and getting my priest up to 85 for alt usage in raids. After which, of course, I'll again have the gear and rep grind. It never ends!

Raids have been going well despite the bit of craziness from the holiday season. We're 11/12 at the moment with only Nefarian left to kill, and we made some excellent progress on Thursday on heroic Halfus despite a less-than-ideal comp, so we should get him down in the week. I'll be working on some new guides to the raid encounters as some have changed a bit since beta (though for the most part the beta preview pages are still pretty accurate and useful).

Resto druids are in a bit of an odd place at the moment. As mentioned in my last post, we're definitely feeling a fair bit behind Paladins and Priests. Paladins have been a bit OP since beta, and though they did have some nerfs they're still quite strong. Priests got a lot of much-needed buffs (they were ridiculously behind the other healers on beta) so now they're looking almost too strong, and I won't be surprised to see most progression guilds stacking priests and pallies for some early kills. A bit of a problem with druids at the moment is our AE heals were scaled back quite a bit - Wild Growth isn't hitting as hard as it used to, Efflorescence is strong but not as much as it was, and Rejuv is very mana intensive, so you have to be careful with its use. It's definitely still strong for heals, but you absolutely cannot waste them on overheals or you risk going OoM. Our tank heals are stronger now with Lifebloom and Nourish and Healing Touch, but it's more likely Paladins will still be preferred as tank healers due to all the cooldowns they have, whether a Hand of Sacrifice or Lay on Hands, etc. In terms of actual HPS numbers, druids can hit some of the numbers priests and pallies are reaching, but it seems to be at a greater mana cost and harder to reach, even when the toons themselves are about equal in terms of gear and skill. Pallies and Priests are pretty easily hitting the top numbers with druids and shamans trailing behind a bit. Overall, it's just feeling quite imbalanced at the moment, and I really think either druids and shamans could do with some boosts or pallies and priests need to be scaled back a bit. We won't see anything til after the holidays, I'm sure, as Blizz needs their holiday too! But hopefully there'll be some changes upcoming.

Otherwise, things have been fun around the game. The new raids are fun and pretty interesting. I still think Atramedes is one of my favourite fights, as it was in Beta... As ever, I'm a sucker for a good dragon fight, and I find the concept of a blind dragon and how his attacks are sound-based is interesting. Ascendant Council is also a fun fight due to its mechanics and how you're supposed to use them, and is proving to be one of the harder fights for many - the soft enrage in the final phase is definitely a strong push (you need to burn him down before you all die to the damage, basically).

I've been plugging away at Archaeology as well, though it's starting to wear on me now! I did get very lucky and found a Ring of the Boy Emperor, but no luck yet with Tyrande's Favourite Doll. I finally had to take a break and get back to working on other stuff as it was just going on too long. I had also been trying to get the Vial of the Sands recipe to drop, but after many Tol'vir items and yet another common that wasn't a Canopic Jar, I gave in and found someone with the recipe. Fortunately I had already saved up the mats (transmute master proccing on Truegold is amazing), and now that the mount's BOE, I was able to find someone to craft it for me without charging a ridiculous tip. So now I can turn into a dragon! /Squee! I'll likely get back to looking for the recipe, but I won't be spending ridiculous amounts of time on it.

Anyhow, I hope you all are enjoying the new content so far! I'm looking forward to doing some levelling again with my little worgen warrior after my priest gets sorted out at 85. He's all equipped with BoA gear and sitting out in Darkshore (Withers pet!), I had fun romping through the starting zone already. Worgen starting zone is definitely worth a look! I'll have to check out the Goblin zone at some point too, but that can wait.

More posts to come soon! In the meantime, enjoy the holidays and enjoy the game!