tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39936684874923572472024-02-20T14:45:23.180-05:00FERALTREEAdventures and musings of a resto-feral druid in WoW. Welcome to FeralTree!Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.comBlogger105125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-28557458013366229312011-11-23T14:00:00.002-05:002011-11-23T14:48:22.142-05:00The Many Uses for the Tree of Life Cooldown! An Illustrated Guide<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/toluses_title.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="331" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/toluses_title.gif" width="400" /></a></div>I've been meaning to write this post for a while and I've finally finished the drawings for it! I've been having fun recently doing some lighthearted doodles for guildies (inspired by one of our boomkins who also likes to make doodles). I love drawing tree form, and what better way to do a post about the many wonderful uses of our <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=33891">Tree of Life</a> cooldown than by doing a bunch of doodles for it! Let's dive in.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=33891">Tree of Life</a>:</b> Shapeshift into the tree of life, increasing healing done by 15% and increasing your armour by 120%. Also protects the caster from Polymorph effects. In addition, some of your spells are temporarily enhanced while shapeshifted (Lifebloom, Wild Growth, Regrowth, Entangling Roots, Wrath).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/toluses_healmoar.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="332" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/toluses_healmoar.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Heal Moar!!!!</td></tr>
</tbody></table><b>Throughput Boost!</b><br />
This is the most straightforward use for the Tree of Life cooldown - it increases our healing done by 15%. This is a great and simple use for ToL - is the tank getting absolutely wrecked? Pop ToL and heal to victory! A period of raid-wide damage? Pop ToL and heal heal heal! (More tricks on raid healing with ToL below!) Want to boost your Tranquility even more? Pop ToL, activate <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=77495">Harmony</a> and Tranq away! You can plan to use it in advance if you know a period of heavy damage is coming, or pop it in an emergency when you need that extra boost.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/toluses_ooclb.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="332" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/toluses_ooclb.gif" width="400" /></a></div><b>Raid Healing with ToL!</b><br />
This is one of my favourite uses for Tree of Life. I often save ToL for specific points in fights with heavy raid-wide damage. I pop ToL and spread Lifebloom all over the raid - single stacks, multiple stacks, whatever's needed. This gets tons of Omen of Clarity procs, which I can use to throw out instant free Regrowths to top up anyone who needs a bigger heal. I work in Wild Growths as well (which hits an extra target in ToL), and Swiftmend as needed. You could throw out a couple of Rejuvs as well, but all the free Regrowths going out will set up Swiftmendable targets, so while ToL is active I wouldn't use too many Rejuvs.<br />
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This strategy will give you a tremendous amount of raid coverage at an incredibly low mana cost. Lifebloom is an extremely cheap spell, so you can spread it over as many people as you can and barely see your mana dip at all. All of the Omen of Clarity procs will let you throw out the free Regrowths as well, so you'll have tons of big instant heals going out at zero mana cost as well. Wild Growths will still cost mana of course, but should absolutely still be going out, as well as Swiftmends as needed.<br />
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Lifebloom does a good amount of healing, so don't discount spreading it around the raid! Don't forget - it stacks and it blooms. All druids should be running with 3/3 <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=51181">Gift of the Earthmother</a> in their spec regardless, and this talent increases the bloom from Lifebloom by 15%.<br />
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This strategy also gives you more mobility in phases of heavy raid damage, the instant Regrowths let you pop off some bigger heals while on the move instead of having to stop to cast.<br />
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Don't be afraid to use Regrowths without OoC if you need to! It will cost more mana of course (so be careful not to spam it!), but if it's a choice of someone living or dying, you should use it.<br />
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Some examples!<br />
5-Mans: This is a great trick to use on the Panther boss in Zul-Gurub (especially if your tank got a few too many cats!). The entire group is getting wrecked - you can easily cover all five people in the group with 2-3 stacks of Lifebloom. All of the OoC procs will let you get instant free Regrowths for bigger heals on party members or the tank, and you can layer on Wild Growths on cooldown as well. You might want to keep a Rejuv on your tank so you can Swiftmend him if necessary in case he didn't have a Regrowth thrown on him.<br />
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Raids: Obviously you can cover more raid members with Lifebloom in a 10man than in a 25man, but it is still an extremely useful strategy. Two examples!<br />
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Beth'tilac: I use this strategy all the time on Beth'tilac when I go up top to heal and in the final phase. It is especially useful up top as I can cover myself, the tank, and the DPS up there with LB, get quick top-ups on me and the DPS with the free Regrowths, cover everyone with Wild Growth, Swiftmend when needed, and continue my direct heals (Healing Touch and Regrowths as needed) on the tank.<br />
It is also a mana efficient way to cover the raid during the final burn phase and will help you manage your mana in what is a very intense healing and mana phase without reducing your healing done.<br />
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Ragnaros: I love using Tree of Life on the two Intermissions phases. The entire raid is taking lots of damage from the Lava Bolts during these phases, and in the second Intermission phase your tanks are also taking a beating from the Lava Scions. Using ToL here allows you to be mobile when your raid is very spread out and to quickly and efficiently heal and top-up raid members. An instant Regrowth on someone whose health is low can save them from being killed by another Lava Bolt! It will also help conserve your mana for later phases, especially the Molten Seeds phases which have a significant amount of raid damage.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/toluses_dps.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="332" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/toluses_dps.gif" width="400" /></a></div><b>DPS!</b><br />
Tree of Life can be great as a DPS cooldown! ToL reduces your Wrath cast-time by half, so you'll end up with about a 1 second cast time (possibly less if you have Nature's Grace procced or Heroism). This can be really wonderful in fights where there's a significant DPS burn needed during a period of low or no raid damage, and also it's just extremely fun to do! Not to mention a treant casting Wrath looks amazing! A great example is the Alysrazor fight in Firelands - when she crash-lands, she takes additional damage, attacks restore your mana, and no damage is going out until she starts to take off again. So, pop treeform, and pew pew pew!!<br />
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Also, if you do any BGs or Arenas, it can be a fun little way to finish off an opponent. They won't be too happy with you though!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/toluses_rogueslol.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="332" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/toluses_rogueslol.gif" width="400" /></a></div><b>Annoying Rogues (and PVP fun in general)!</b><br />
Speaking of BGs and Arenas... I don't PVP too often, so when I do I like to have a bit of fun. I don't profess to be an expert at PVP though!<br />
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ToL is of course a great cooldown to use in general in PVP, I find especially in BGs if someone (or many) decide to beat on me for a while. If a melee comes to hit me, the instant heals are amazing for surviving (especially when they pop their cooldowns) as you can lay on the HoTs and do larger top-ups with Swiftmends and instant Regrowths without worrying about getting interrupted. The more-skilled PVPers out there will probably have interrupt-juking down to an art form, but I still have some ways to go with that!<br />
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ToL also increases your armour, makes you immune to Polymorph, and allows you to cast Entangling Roots instantly, so you can root people and flee if your Nature's Grasp is on cooldown. Don't forget to cast Thorns on yourself! (ToL doesn't boost Thorns, but it's still good to cast if a melee is poking at you!) It can also help you live a bit longer as you try to either flee, CC, or just wait for a peel or some DPS back-up.<br />
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If you want to have a bit of fun with your would-be assassin, you can also throw out a classic /dance or /cheer or /wave while in treeform. Prepare to have them harass you for the rest of the BG though! Just greet them with a /smile when you see them again.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/toluses_dance.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="332" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/toluses_dance.gif" width="400" /></a></div><b>/dance!</b><br />
One of my favourite things about Tree of Life form (and why I miss the perma-tree form so much) is the sheer light-heartedness and goofiness of the form and all the fun emotes and play you could have with people. Though I prefer the old Treant form, the new tree form can have a lot of fun as well (its flailing is even goofier than the treant flails!).<br />
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I most sorely miss the light-hearted fun I would have constantly with my permanent tree form. I'd jump around, run into walls, /dance, /cheer (my favourite), back when I was an engineer I'd rocket boot and parachute off the steps in VoA or random cliffs (a tree floating down on a parachute was amazing). A treant running around looks hilarious - they always look very busy, as if they're rushing about yelling 'NO TIME TO STOP!! MUST GO HEAL THINGS!!' Not to mention the fun had with guildies threatening to chop me down/set me on fire/etc while I shed leaves on them. All these poor Worgen, they finally got to come play and they lost all the trees they could have peed on!<br />
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I absolutely love the cooldown ability, don't get me wrong, but I'm still disappointed that I had to lose my permanent tree form just to get it. I wish we could get some option to turn on the form (perhaps out of combat) just to have some fun without a duration!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/doodles_derwent_healallthingsgif.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/doodles_derwent_healallthingsgif.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nods here to the ever funny Allie Brosh from <a href="http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html">Hyperbole and a Half</a> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>That about wraps it up! Do you have any uses for Tree of Life that you've found particularly useful or fun? Share in the comments!Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-81512766939303744932011-10-23T18:13:00.014-04:002011-10-24T08:04:41.943-04:00New Druid Talent Trees in Mists of Pandaria (WoW 5.0)<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Another Blizzcon has come and gone! I didn’t get to go in person but I watched the stream again this year. It was a lot of fun! The Q&As were pretty good as were the panels (I really enjoyed the art panel again this year), I even checked out some of the SC2 matches (hopefully I can learn something and try to get a bit better at it!). The Foo Fighters put on an awesome concert closing night! All in all a good time.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The next WoW expansion was announced, Mists of Pandaria, however I’m not going to go into that today as it would certainly take up an entire post! </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">One thing that was definitely interesting was the new talent tree system! The new system sounds cool and potentially a lot more fun. One of the primary goals behind the revamp was to try to make talent trees more fun and customizable, which was the original intent behind the current format of them, however lead to the ‘cookie cutter’ builds which the devs aren’t too fond of. I’m sure even with the new system there’ll be setups that are more optimal for certain things, whether PVE, PVP, or certain encounters. It seems like the abilities themselves will be a bit more fun though and a bit more mixed, so I think there will be some flexibility still there.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">As is my understanding, the new talent trees will work as follows. You still select your specialisation (for Druids it would be Restoration, Balance, Feral (cat), and Feral (Guardian) - they officially split the bear and cat specs for 5.0). Choosing a specialisation will give you access to specific spells in addition to the core spells across all specs. They didn’t give too many examples of this sort of thing, but they did mention with the new cat and bear specs, a bear will not be able to use Shred or Rip, and a cat won’t be able to use Survival Instincts or Frenzied Regen. Based on this we can gather that certain abilities will only be available to certain specialisations. </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Talents, on the other hand, will be available to all specs. This is where you can customize now, and is potentially quite fun as it can give you access to abilities that before were only available to specific specs. You get a talent point every 15 levels, six in total, and you choose each tier from three options/abilities. If I remember right, you can’t do more than two in a row down one tree, so it encourages more mixing rather than just going straight down. </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">It was suggested as well that changing talents will be easier to do than it is now and that you will be able to do so ‘out in the field’. If I’m understanding this correctly, you should be able to swap your talents while out in the world (out of combat, of course) without having to go back to your trainer, and it will be similar to the ease of swapping glyphs. It seems you still have to go back to your trainer if you want to do a full respec (to wipe your talents and specialisation if you were, say, changing from Feral to Balance). </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Enough preamble, let’s take a look at the proposed Druid talent tree! Keep in mind this may change a lot between now and 5.0 release. Thanks to <a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/"><b>MMO-Champion</b></a> for the screenshots of the talents.</span></span><br />
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</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/druid_tier1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/druid_tier1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>Tier 1: Feral Swiftness - Displacer Beast - Tireless Pursuit</b></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This first set of talents is clearly about mobility. Displacer Beast is an interesting one, it’s kind of like a mix of Blink, Cloak of Shadows, and Vanish. The random direction aspect is a bit odd, and I wonder if that will stay in. It’s a pretty powerful ability, so the random direction may be to help downtune that a bit perhaps. My only concern would be, in a raiding context, the potential hazards of that - displacing into lava, a trap, a cleave, who knows! Tireless Pursuit sounds nice for escaping snares and roots, particularly with the speed boost to help you get farther away. Feline Swiftness is a nice straightforward speed boost, which I quite like.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/druid_tier2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/druid_tier2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>Tier 2: Nature’s Swiftness - Renewal - Cenarion Ward</b></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This tier is focussed more on healing abilities. Nature’s Swiftness is almost the same as its current implementation for Resto. In this version the spell cast is cost-free, which is nice. The most interesting change there though is popping NS makes the spell castable in any form. This could be a very nice talent for bears and cats, as using NS to battle rez someone would allow them to stay in form. This would be especially useful for bears as it can be so difficult to use a bear battle rez in PVE encounters. For cats and moonkin it will likely reduce the hit to their DPS from shifting forms to rez someone. </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Renewal is a straightforward talent, it’s exactly like the current Desperate Prayer for priests. </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Cenarion Ward is a bit odd. When I first glimpsed it I thought it was a shield of sorts, but that’s not what it is. Basically it seems a way of pre-HoTing - imagine placing this on the tank pre-pull, when he takes the first hit from the boss it will start healing as a 6 second HoT. Kind of underwhelming.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Nature’s Swiftness would probably be my pick in that set, especially for healing. CW doesn’t seem too great a healing ability. Renewal is a nice survivability talent, I’m not sure whether bears might prefer that or NS. NS would allow them to throw a Healing Touch or Regrowth on themself - Renewal would be a bigger heal but NS would let them cast BRs while tanking. </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/druid_tier3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/druid_tier3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>Tier 3: Faerie Swarm - Mass Entanglement - Typhoon</b></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Faerie Swarm is essentially an upgrade of Faerie Fire (which it appears we will still get, as this talent would replace FF if chosen). Pretty much just adds in a movement speed debuff. Mass Entanglement could be interesting for mass CC. Typhoon though I find the most fun out of the tree as it makes Typhoon available for all specs and usable in all forms. As much as I dislike knockbacks (especially when I’m tanking), this seems like a fun thing to get. Admittedly I’m already planning on ways to annoy my tank friends by tree-phooning them while healing runs! It will be nice though for fights that require knockbacks for any druid to be able to pick it up instead of requiring they all go Moonkin.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/druid_tier4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/druid_tier4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>Tier 4: Wild Charge - Incarnation - Force of Nature</b></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Wild Charge gives a movement ability of some sort to each spec/form. Bear form is basically like current bear form, a charge which immobilizes the target and grants the bear 30% haste. Moonkin gets a sort of Disengage effect, allowing them to leap backward and gain Solar or Lunar energy. Caster form lets you fly to an ally’s position and the next healing spell cast costs no mana. </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Force of Nature seems like it could be fun - based on the tooltip, it seems you summon some treants to come help you deal damage or heal (and perhaps protect you while tanking?). I’ve always thought the idea of Resto summoning more treants to help them heal would be tremendously fun. I don’t think this talent will be feasible for Resto, though, which is sad. This is due to the last talent option:</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Incarnation is both interesting and odd at the same time, and makes me wonder what their plans are for Resto. Essentially, Incarnation activates a sort of ‘super shapeshift form’. The two examples they gave were Feral, granting you use of abilities which normally require stealth, and Resto, granting the current Tree of Life cooldown abilities. This is what’s a bit odd. Based on the Wild Charge tooltip (non-shapeshifted Wild Charge giving a free healing spell), it seems as though they will continue to keep Resto as caster form rather than any return of Tree form. Basically Resto is required to take this talent, as the Tree of Life cooldown is such a significant cooldown for Resto. It certainly goes against the devs saying they want to provide more choice as, for Resto at least, there’s not much choice there. The other two talents do not seem anywhere near as valuable for healing as ToL (I’ve been working on a post that discusses all the valuable uses for the ToL cooldown). Gaining an extra Wild Growth target, being able to spread Lifebloom to multiple targets, and instant Regrowth casts are too important to bypass this talent. It’s an absolute must-have for Resto. </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Honestly I also find it a bit sad that, judging by the rest of the talent tree, a Resto druid may not get any tree form at all if, for whatever reason, they decide not to pick up that talent.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/druid_tier5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/druid_tier5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>Tier 5: Demoralizing Roar - Ursol’s Vortex - Bear Hug</b></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This is a new version of Demo Roar, as the current implementations of Demo Roar and Demo Shout will be gone in 5.0. Ursol’s Vortex seems fun, essentially an AE deathgrip. Bear Hug is mostly amusing for the name, should have some uses, likely more in PVP. </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/druid_tier6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/druid_tier6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>Tier 6: Heart of the Wild - Master Shapeshifter - Disentanglement</b></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The level 90 tier for the druid feels pretty lackluster. A lot of the other class level 90 talents were very interesting - Warriors could choose to get Bladestorm, Shockwave, or a new ability called Avatar. Rogues could pick up Shadowdance, Killing Spree, or Vendetta. Priests even had one called Void Shift that allows them to swap their health %age with a friendly target. Those all seem much more fun and interesting than the druid ones. </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The talents are focussed around shapeshifting and I suppose with emphasizing Hybrid roles. HotW cooldown would grant, for example, moonkins to generate Lunar or Solar power from healing spells, and would gain 50% of Intellect as Agility, etc. I suppose this may have use in PVP particularly for the druid really performing several roles (especially in, say, Arena, where they might have to off-heal, etc). I don’t see this being particularly useful in PVE though. It might be occasionally helpful perhaps in an emergency if, say, healers are down and a Boomkin needs to help heal some. It really doesn’t seem too exciting though.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Master Shapeshifter essentially gives you a stacking buff whenever you shapeshift which increases your melee or spell damage. Again, I don’t really see this being particularly useful, particularly in a PVE context. I can’t see many cats or boomkins shifting forms to throw out a random Moonfire/Rake/whatever.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Disentanglement seems a bit useful mostly for the heal. Removing roots is always nice but doesn’t seem particularly amazing (and is a bit disappointing that, not only will all specs have to talent that ability, it’s our level 90 ability). </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Overall though the 90 talents seem lackluster and, while perhaps trying to be ‘druid-y’ and ‘hybrid’, don’t really seem exciting or that useful.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">There was also mention of a new druid healing spell that is basically a Resto version of Wild Mushrooms, where the Mushrooms heal instead of deal damage. Not too sure how I feel about that. I can see occasions where it might be useful, but it’s not particularly exciting, and will likely be pretty situational. Also assuming you have to plant the three mushrooms like Boomkins do, that’s another three globals spent not healing. It’s fine to plant pre-pull on a fight, but it’s just like the current Lifebloom 3stack tank-swapping issues at the moment. Three globals just to set up some healing, which obviously prevents you from doing any healing in those three globals. It seems like it will be clunky and inelegant and ultimately not too fun to use.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">I’ll close with a sample talent tree which, in the above implementation of the talent tree, I would likely use for Resto. The talent tree is from Wowhead's sample <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/mists-of-pandaria-talent-calculator"><b>MoP Talent Calculator</b></a>.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/restolvl90talenttree_23oct11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="306" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/restolvl90talenttree_23oct11.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Feline Swiftness for the general speed boost, which is always useful (and will likely allow a straight stat enchant to boots rather than requiring one with a speed increase). Nature’s Swiftness for the free instant spells, which I feel wins out for Resto - I’ve found NS to be way too valuable for me to really want to drop it, and Cenarion Ward seems lackluster as a simple HoT activated on damage as opposed to a normal HoT. Renewal would be nice for survivability, but I feel NS wins out for the Resto toolset.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Typhoon is mostly for the fun of grabbing it and useful for any additional fights which require knockbacks. Incarnation, as I mentioned above, is a must-have for Resto. Ursol’s Vortex I mostly grabbed for the fun of an AE deathgrip, though I don’t really see much use for any of those three talents for Resto in PVE. Lastly I grabbed Disentanglement, as the others don’t seem particularly useful for Resto (though also the tooltips shared by Blizz don’t describe much of the Resto benefits). Shapeshifting to get out of roots is useful and the heal when shapeshifting is nice for survivability.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Anyhow, I’ll wrap up there for now. Obviously this will likely undergo several changes before 5.0, hopefully it will be a lot more refined and improved by then. I look forward to playing with all of these in the Beta though! What are your impressions of the new talents? </span></span></div>Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-57131558663386108412011-10-05T20:40:00.012-04:002011-10-11T02:30:32.711-04:00Harmony, Lifebloom, and You! (with logs!)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/doodles_derwent_healallthingsgif.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/doodles_derwent_healallthingsgif.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My doodle of how I imagine my tree healing :D <br />
Inspired by the ever funny Allie Brosh from<b><a href="http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html"> Hyperbole & a Half</a></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">I wanted to devote a post to Harmony (our Mastery) and Lifebloom as I’ve found many druids (whether mains, offspecs, or alts) were not realising the value of these things, not maintaining good uptime on them, or both. These two things are extremely important to druid healing. Lifebloom especially is crucial to our mana regen (from Revitalise procs), to our clearcasting (as, for Resto druids, Lifebloom is our only ability which grants Omen of Clarity for our healing spells), and to our groups, as Lifebloom provides Replenishment for our party or raid.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">For anyone wondering what I mean by uptime - uptime is referring to how much the ability or buff is active throughout a fight. So, for a quick example, if you maintain Lifebloom up perfectly through an entire fight, the uptime would be 100%. If you only had it up for half the fight, it would be 50%. </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Ideally, both Lifebloom and Harmony will have an uptime of 100%. In actuality, it will vary a little bit; for example, on the Alysrazor encounter, when Alysrazor crash lands there is no damage going out until she takes off again. Healers in this period are all DPSing both to help damage her and also for the mana return from DPSing her in this phase. During that period you won’t be maintaining Lifebloom or Harmony as you’ll be busy DPSing. The end uptime percentage on these abilities for that fight will be below 100% as it simply isn’t in the mechanics of the fight. Now, compare that fight to, say, Baleroc, where the primary healing is all big direct heals on the tanks and Shards of Torment soakers. This is a fight where it’s pretty easy to get 98%+ uptime on both Lifebloom and Harmony.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Keeping context of the specific fights in mind, a practical uptime for both Lifebloom and Harmony should be between 80% and 100%. You should always aim to be as close to 100% as possible.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; text-decoration: underline;"><b>Harmony</b></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Harmony, the Resto Mastery: Your direct healing is increased by an additional x% and casting your direct healing spells grants you an additional x% bonus to your periodic healing for 10 seconds.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Your direct healing spells (Nourish, Healing Touch, Regrowth, and Swiftmend) proc a buff called Harmony - this buff lasts for 10 seconds and boosts your HoTs by x% (based on how much mastery you have).</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">This is extremely important to maintain as it strengthens your HoTs. This is especially important while raid healing - many druids simply fall into the Rejuv, Rejuv, Rejuv, Wild Growth! spam while raid healing and forget about their direct heals entirely, or just think that because they’re on raid they shouldn’t use any other spells. Unfortunately this results in you gimping your own HoTs (as well as wasting an arsenal of useful healing spells). If that buff isn’t active, your HoTs have no benefit from your Mastery (and yes, that buff needs to be active before you cast the HoTs). Harmony needs to be active for your HoTs to be as strong as possible.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">As I mentioned above, fights like Baleroc or Shannox with a lot of single-target healing focus are a bit easier to maintain good Harmony uptime. Fights with heavier raid damage such as Beth’tilac or Lord Rhyolith tend to be more difficult to maintain good uptimes for as you have to balance weaving in your direct heals with your raid healing.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Swiftmend counts as a direct heal and will proc Harmony, so if you’re really pressed to maintain the buff you can use Swiftmends to help activate the buff and, while SM is still on cooldown, through in a quick Nourish, Healing Touch, or Regrowth to keep Harmony active until SM is ready to use again.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">5 man dungeons are probably the easiest place to maintain good Harmony (and Lifebloom) uptimes, as there’s plenty of direct healing to do on the tank (and sometimes on the DPS as well!). You can easily keep it active even when the tank isn’t taking much (or any) damage - simply toss a Nourish on him; it will refresh your Lifebloom stack and activate Harmony for next to no mana cost.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Using Nourish to activate Harmony and refresh Lifebloom is also a great thing to do pre-pull, whether in 5 mans or in raids. The mana cost is negligible and both the Replenishment and Revitalize procs from your Lifebloom will restore the mana quickly. It ensures you go into the start of the fight with Harmony active (which is especially helpful if AoE damage starts right away, so you can spread some HoTs immediately). </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; text-decoration: underline;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Lifebloom</span></b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Lifebloom! Lifebloom is one of our most important spells. It is crucial to keep Lifebloom up whether you’re healing a 5 man dungeon, a 10 or 25 man raid, a heroic raid, or PvP.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Lifebloom in Cataclysm plays a central role in our mana regen and management as well as being a healing tool.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Lifebloom procs <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48544">Revitalize</a>, which grants us mana. </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Lifebloom also is the ONLY way to get <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=16864">Omen of Clarity</a> procs for healing. None of our other healing spells will proc OoC/Clearcasting. We have to spec into <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92364">Malfurion’s Gift</a> in order to enable our Lifeblooms to provide OoC. If your Lifebloom uptime is low, you won’t have as many clearcasting procs from Omen of Clarity, which means you won’t be able to cast spells with no mana cost. This will seriously hamper your mana over the course of a fight!</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Lifebloom also supplies <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=57669">Replenishment</a> for you and your party or raid - Replenishment grants up to 10 party or raid members mana regeneration equal to 1% of their maximum mana per 10 seconds. This is important both for you and your group! Replenishment helps your fellow healers and your casters. This also makes maintaining Lifebloom even more important in 10 and 25 man raids if you only have a few classes in your group who can provide Replenishment. if you are the only person in your 10 man group who can provide Replenishment and your Lifebloom uptime (and hence, Replenishment procs) is low, you are severely limiting Replenishment for your fellow raiders. Similarly in a 25 man group, if there are only a few of you providing Replenishment, you can be preventing your fellow raiders from having Replenishment, as each class’ replenishment only affects up to 10 people. So a Resto druid could provide Replen for an entire 10 man raid but you would need 2 or 3 Replen providers to cover a 25 man raid (possibly only 2 as your non-mana users won’t need it).</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Lifebloom tends to be a bit easier for people to maintain than Harmony, as most seem secure with having to maintain a stack of 3 on their tank. It can also be refreshed quickly if needed by simply recasting it on the tank, though it’s best to refresh it with at least a Nourish (if not Regrowth or Healing Touch) when you can while raid healing so that you activate Harmony as well.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">It’s also good to get into the habit of always having Lifebloom up, and 5 mans is a great place to practice it - always keep it up, even through all the trash! Some may be surprised to hear me suggest that, but I’ve seen many druids in 5 mans only putting Lifebloom on their tank on boss fights. Keeping Lifebloom up and maintaining it, even just with lots of Nourish casts when your tank is taking little to no damage, will go a long way in helping ingrain the habit of keeping it up. It will also keep your tank topped off, especially with the Nourish casts in between heavier damage portions (and will keep Harmony active!). The Replen and Revitalize procs will also help restore your mana between trash pulls and bosses, so less time spent drinking!</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Again, as suggested in the Harmony section, it’s good to get your 3 stack of Lifebloom up pre-pull, and just refresh it into the pull with Nourish to proc Harmony. Also, if you’re lucky enough to get Dark Intent, your warlock will love you as all the Lifebloom ticks will give him a full 3-stack of his Dark Intent buff pre-pull! </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">I should also note: Maintaining Lifebloom is absolutely crucial as I’ve mentioned. There are times, however, when you may be unable to stack Lifebloom on your tank - you may be positioned out of range, for example. In cases like this, stack Lifebloom either on yourself or on another suitable target (if you’re focussing a specific DPS, perhaps a broodling soaker on Beth’tilac, you could stack Lifebloom on them). You can always move the stack back to the tanks when you’re back in range. You absolutely must keep Lifebloom up at all times though.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; text-decoration: underline;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Analyzing Logs: Harmony and Lifebloom</span></b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Logs are the best place to see how you’re doing in terms of maintaining good Lifebloom and Harmony uptime. Whether you’re looking to improve on your own healing, evaluating a new app for your guild, or helping a friend, Logs are extremely helpful all around for analysing your healing.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">World of Logs is where tons of Logs are uploaded by guilds for analysis. It can be a bit confusing at first if you’re not familiar with it, so here’s how to navigate to the information we’re looking for. With pictures! You may have to click the screenshots to get a better view.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Here’s a log for one of our nights last week. This is the Dashboard page, where you’ll be brought to first when selecting a night’s logs. To look at a specific player, use the drop-down menus: Here I’ve gone to Players > Druid > Derwent.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/LBH_logs_selectingplayer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="188" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/LBH_logs_selectingplayer.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">For looking at Lifebloom and Harmony uptimes in particular, you should really look only at Boss fights during raids. Looking at the full report can really skew the data - the person you’re looking at might have been AFK or outside the instance during some of the trash mobs, or they might have been DPSing for some of the fights, or perhaps were swapped out for another raid member for some fights. It’s best to look either at Bosses (to include all of them) or to go to specific bosses and look at them one by one. The time in parenthesis by each boss name is the length of the kill, and an arrow off of any bosses will show multiple attempts/wipes on that boss if it wasn’t killed the first time.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Here I’ve gone to Full Report > Bosses > Ragnaros 25H.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/LBH_logs_selectingboss.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="161" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/LBH_logs_selectingboss.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Once you’ve gotten to a specific player and a specific boss, you can then go through the tabs to get more information. For Harmony and Lifebloom in particular, it’s best to look at Buffs Cast. This will bring up the following screen:</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/LBH_logs_der_raghm_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="340" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/LBH_logs_der_raghm_2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">On the left are the Buffs I cast throughout the fight. You can see Mark of the Wild up at the top at 100% uptime - a static buff of course on the entire raid throughout the fight. Next up is Lifebloom, up at 87.2%, and Harmony at 82.6%. Could be higher, particularly my Harmony which I’ve maintained higher in our other kills, but still good and realistic given some of my other duties in the fight (I do meteor knockbacks in phase 3, Stampeding Roar in phase 2, plus the brief RP time before phase 4). Context is of course important, but you’re still always shooting for that ideal of 100% uptime.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">For interest’s sake, we can scan down the rest of the Buffs there. My Power Torrent procced 16 times throughout the fight, giving it a 25.5% uptime. I had 27 Clearcasting procs throughout the fight from my good Lifebloom uptime. I used Tree of Life 3 times, Barkskin 8 times, Innervated myself 4 times. I used Cat Form 3 times along with 3 Nature’s Swiftness casts, and I even Shadowmelded once! (It tends to help me avoid aggro from the scion spawn in the second intermission).</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Moving to the right, you can see my Debuffs cast - Exhaustion from Heroism, I cast Moonfires on the Meteors I was knocking back, and Concentration from a Concentration Pot.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Moving to the right once more, you can see Power Gains - this is the mana I gained throughout the fight. Reviltalize and Innervate gave me back the most mana. Heartfire is the Resto t12 2-piece bonus, which is a pretty good mana return throughout the course of a fight. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Replenishment there is how much my Replenishment provided to the raid - to see how much you yourself gained from Replenishment, simply click the Buffs Gained tab, shown below, in which you can see the mana gained from Replen (and also from a Concentration pot). </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/LBH_logs_der_rag_buffsgained.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="143" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/LBH_logs_der_rag_buffsgained.jpg" width="400" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></div></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">That all is also looking at a fight which was 12 minutes long - some numbers will be lower for shorter fights.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; text-decoration: underline;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Some Examples</span></b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Here are just a few more examples of some logs looking at Harmony and Lifebloom uptimes.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The following log is one from a Baleroc kill. As I mentioned earlier, because of all the </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">direct healing required in this fight, this is a much easier fight to maintain near-perfect Lifebloom and Harmony uptime. You can see there’s a 98% uptime for Lifebloom and 96.6% uptime for Harmony.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/LBH_logs_der_baleroc_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="142" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/LBH_logs_der_baleroc_.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">I also found the following two logs from kills of Lord Rhyolith - both kills were about 4:40 in length. This is a good comparison of the same encounter, the same length of time, and the effects of high and low Lifebloom uptime in particular.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">If you look at this first log, you can see Harmony uptime is up at 92.2% and Lifebloom uptime is up at 87.1%, good. If you look just below that you can see Clearcasting (Omen of Clarity) procs: 21! If you look over to the right for Power Gains, you can see Revitalize restored 66,639 mana.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/LBH_logs_der_rhyolith.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/LBH_logs_der_rhyolith.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">If we compare that with the following log, you can see Harmony uptime in this log is low at 49.5%, and Lifebloom is only at 31.4% uptime. This also resulted in significantly lower Clearcasting procs - only 8! That can really add up over the course of a fight. If you look to the right, you can see their Revitalize only provided 49,874 mana. While that’s not too low (Rejuvenation also procs Revitalize, which helps there, and the size of each druid's mana pool does factor in as well), that’s still a disparity of 16,765 mana. </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/LBH_logs_compare_rhyolith.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/LBH_logs_compare_rhyolith.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">So as you can see, good Lifebloom uptime is really important for mana as well as healing!</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">I’ve certainly rattled on enough, so I think I'll wrap it up here. Remember, good Harmony and Lifebloom uptime is important and, as ever, practice makes perfect! Don't be discouraged if you're a bit low to start with - just keep working at it and it will improve.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">A good tracker for Harmony and Lifebloom can also go a long way! I have some useful <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/powerauras-classic.aspx">Power Auras</a> for keeping an eye on those (full details in my<b> <a href="http://feraltree.blogspot.com/p/my-user-interface-addons.html">My User Interface / Addons</a> </b>post!) which may be of help to you - the Harmony one in particular displays when the buff is active and has a timer to show you how long is left on it. Many of you likely have some means of watching your HoTs on targets to keep an eye on your Lifebloom, but if you like you can also use the little power aura to show you when your Lifebloom is active as well (this aura does NOT show stacks or timer for Lifebloom, though).</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/derpowerauras-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="303" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/derpowerauras-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Harmony Power Aura:</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Version:4.22; b:0.0549; g:0.4863; icon:Spell_Nature_HealingWay; buffname:Harmony; r:0.1843; x:-85; customname:Harmony; texture:23; alpha:1; inVehicle:0; wowtex:true; combat:true; size:0.25; y:-160; texmode:1; ismounted:0; timer.b:0.9294; timer.h:2; timer.Texture:WhiteRabbit; timer.enabled:true; timer.r:0.9882; timer.cents:false; timer.Relative:CENTER; timer.UseOwnColor:true</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Lifebloom Power Aura:</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Version:4.22; icon:INV_Misc_Herb_Felblossom; buffname:Lifebloom; x:-45; customname:Lifebloom; alpha:1; mine:true; inVehicle:0; groupOrSelf:true; customtex:true; combat:true; size:0.1; y:-115; ismounted:0</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Simply copy, open up <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/powerauras-classic.aspx">Power Auras</a>, hit 'Import' and paste the code into the import bar!</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Happy healing!</span></span></div>Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-51521468713792647142011-09-28T12:30:00.008-04:002011-09-28T16:35:32.135-04:004.3 PTR Resto Changes - TO THE GROUND!The 4.3 PTR is finally up and rolling, which means lots and lots of news, changes, more changes, and even more changes!<br />
<br />
Resto druids everywhere did a double take with this first round of 4.3 PTR patch notes which included the following:<br />
-Wild Growth healing has been reduced by 20%.<br />
-Glyph of Wild Growth now also increases the cooldown by 2 seconds.<br />
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This is a pretty substantial nerf and is a really perplexing one. This is essentially nerfing Wild Growth back to its state at Cata Launch - significantly less healing done and a 10 second cooldown. This is boggling because WG was a huge issue in 4.0, Resto druids simply were substantially behind other healers. They needed a boost to simple raw output so badly that in patch 4.0.6, Wild Growth got a 30% buff to its healing done and its cooldown reverted back down to 8 seconds. Now 4.3 wants to... bring back the old WG output and CD and bring us back to those output issues of 4.0?<br />
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There's an attempt at smoothing over the glyph change by describing it as a means to give Resto druids 'more choice' in which glyphs to use. This neglects the fact that there are really only 4 decent glyphs for Resto druids to choose from to begin with. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=45602">Wild Growth</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=40914">Healing Touch</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=40908">Innervate</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=40909">Rebirth</a>. Usually the Healing Touch and Innervate glyphs are the two people swap between. Even moreso, for those druids that opt not to pick up Nature's Swiftness, the Healing Touch glyph is useless for them so they really only have 3 choices. So, there's no choice component in this at all.<br />
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It's a straight attempt to strongly nerf Wild Growth. And with this component now as well, we basically have to choose whether to sacrifice 1/6 of the output (chopping WG down from hitting 6 targets back down to 5), or to gain an extra 2 seconds on the cd. I imagine many will simply be dropping the glyph. And from our great choice selection, I guess we can run... the Innervate glyph. Hooray. I can now get a little more of my Innervate on the rare occasions I cast it on someone else following the Innervate nerf.<br />
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I can certainly understand wanting to nerf Wild Growth, as it's usually in the top end for heals used in Resto druid's healing (with exceptions being in fights like Shannox, where tank damage and healing is the primary component, bringing Lifebloom and Healing Touch towards the top of heals used per fight). But a nerf this substantial that brings it back to its 4.0 state is ridiculous, as it's likely going to bring back the same issues that caused it to be buffed in 4.0.6. Druids still have no mitigation abilities, Holy Priests will now be getting a boost to Divine Hymn to give them their Tranq-like raid cooldown, and, despite having good direct heals, druids will still not be preferred tank healers over Paladins (and possibly now Shamans, with the 4.3 shaman changes). It's the same issues for druids all over again.<br />
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If a nerf is even necessary, a more reasonable nerf to Wild Growth would be a lot better - even a 10% nerf to the healing done by WG wouldn't be as bad as the current 20% nerf. The increased cooldown from the Glyph is really too much and seems a terribly poor decision. While similar to the change listed for the Priest Circle of Healing glyph (the glyph has the same effect as WG; its 4.3 change also increases the mana cost by 20%), an increased mana cost is a lot less costly than an increased cooldown.<br />
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There are also concerns that the Tranquility cooldown changes have faded in people's memories some - Ghostcrawler did acknowledge around early 4.2 that Resto druids often 'win' at meters due to the inflation caused by Tranquility. With this acknowledgement was the hope that they would keep this in mind for future healing adjustments so that druids didn't receive unnecessary nerfs due to the HPS inflation caused by Tranq. WG numbers are always high for druids but the strength of WG was definitely something that was needed because druids didn't have the output of other healers pre-4.0.6 when WG was buffed.<br />
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I sincerely hope the WG glyph change will be reverted and that the nerfs in general to WG will be reduced.<br />
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I'd hope for some other improvements for Resto druids as well in 4.3. Our talent tree still needs work. Living Seed, Blessing of the Grove, and Nature's Bounty all remain lackluster talents. Nature's Grace still should be swapped with Genesis in their tiers in the Balance tree as well.<br />
<br />
Having to spec Nature's Cure for a magic dispel seems a frustrating choice (for Shaman and Paladin healers as well - all three classes have to spec to pick up Magic Dispel). Magic Dispel I think should simply go along the route of Holy/Disc priests, who gain the ability to dispel friendly targets when specialising in either tree. Healers are the only ones with an ability to magic dispel friendly targets currently anyway, it seems a waste of a talent point as the dispel is often required in everything from 5 mans to 25 man heroic raids. Even if there aren't that many things which need to be dispelled, the few things that can be dispelled are powerful enough spells that they simply must be dispelled.<br />
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This is still just the first round of the PTR and the very first release of the 4.3 PTR. Hopefully there'll be many more adjustments and changes to come, and hopefully they'll reevaluate this Wild Growth nerf. There are a lot of changes for the other healing classes; an interesting one is Holy Priests will now get their raid cooldown with a talented Divine Hymn that has its healing increased and its cooldown cut down to 3 minutes. First glance at the DH change seems to put it about in line with Tranquility (keeping in mind DH is a direct cast only, while Tranquility applies a HoT). The main difference is DH also applies an Increased Healing buff, which is hopefully accounted for in DH's actual heals as well. It will certainly be a potent cooldown for Holy priests, and hopefully will be kept in line with Tranq.<br />
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They've also started previous PTRs with very large nerfs which they've later scaled back some, so hopefully we'll see this nerf scaled back and toned down in the coming weeks. The Resto community will hopefully have their concerns heard (and we can certainly see through the alleged 'glyph choices' idea to the actual blatant nerf it's attempting to gloss over).<br />
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Here's hoping for better news to come.Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-12055945498813794932011-09-13T17:02:00.002-04:002011-09-13T18:22:08.119-04:00Healing and Battling the Firelord, Heroic Ragnaros!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/ragheroic_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/ragheroic_3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">417 pulls later, the Firelord has been vanquished! Last Wednesday we finally killed Heroic Ragnaros! A big congratulations to all my fellow guildies in <a href="http://www.drow.org/">Drow</a>, it was 7 long weeks of hard work but we pulled through and got him down! A bit unfortunately, the inevitable nerfbat hit the night before we killed it, which was rather disappointing. We had been getting deep into phase 4 the week before and were on our way to a pre-nerf kill, so it felt a little like the rug had been pulled from under us there. But, life goes on, and all the work we put in up to that week was certainly a big deal! We were very happy to get our kill, and we finished up with a US 11th 25man kill, which was a great achievement for the guild. Now, we prep for 4.3 and Deathwing!</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Reesi of <a href="http://www.theincbear.com/">The Inconspicuous Bear</a> put together a great video of our kill, featuring the PoVs of one of our DPS warriors and one of our Boomkins. I’ll share that with you all below, then I thought I’d talk a bit about the fight and healing it!</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><object height="345" width="560"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7PpsOP2bbZA?version=3&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7PpsOP2bbZA?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="345" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Hands down this was one of the most challenging fights I’ve ever encountered, and quite likely the most challenging encounter ever placed in the game so far. There were a lot of mechanics to learn, abilities to dodge, adds to control... on and on! all while meeting tight DPS checks. </span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Like much of this tier, the high DPS requirements for the fight required running fewer healers. Some of the first Heroic kills used only three healers, though for our work and comp we settled on using four healers. We did do a night of work three healing late on (when one of our healers was out for the night), which was a fun additional challenge, but our kill used four. We used a resto druid (me), two paladins, and a holy priest.</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The fight has a lot of phases and is very long (our kill was around 13 minutes), with damage varying from light to heavy throughout the fight. Mana management and careful planning of cooldowns and heals used is crucial on this fight to ensure you’re maximising your healing done, your mana saved, and your cooldown usage.</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Because of the importance of mana in this long of a fight, it’s important to ensure you’re making the most of all your heals and not wasting any. Careful thought of when and where to place abilities like Efflorescence, Wild Growth, Tranqs, etc, go a long way in this fight. While there’ll definitely be times where someone way out of group absolutely needs a Swiftmend, and should get one, as much as possible Efflos are good on groups to max the healing done. Similarly with a spell like Wild Growth, times when a misplaced cast hits someone who’s off on their own so no one else gets ticks can be costly.</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The first phase is fairly light healing wise - you have to heal up raid members after Wrath and Hand of Ragnaros and after each Magma Trap explosion, but you have a fair bit of time between each of these abilities, so you can generally afford to use more mana efficient heals to top people up. Tanks do take a lot of damage in this phase though. Popping Tranquility after the first Magma Trap explosion is actually a nice time to use the cooldown - it will heal up raid members very efficiently, and the cooldown will be available in later phases should you need it.</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The two Intermission phases are quite interesting to heal, and how I decided to handle them actually prompted me to change my spec. I save my Tree of Life cooldown for the two Intermission phases - the entire raid is getting wrecked and is usually quite spread out at first due to stunning and killing the Sons of Flame. So quick heals, good raid coverage, and mobility are all extremely helpful in these phases. Mana efficiency is also huge, especially before Phase 2 and eventually Phase 4, where raid damage is quite intense. Bring in Tree of Life! </span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Popping tree form in the Intermissions allows me to cover the raid with Lifeblooms to help manage raid healing, free instant Regrowths on all the Omen of Clarity procs (and without OoC when necessary) to top off raid members who dip very low, and of course Wild Growths and any Rejuvs or Swiftmends as needed. The raid gets hit very hard in the Intermissions and, especially when running few healers, it’s crucial the raid is getting healed up. ToL is great to pop in these phases on normal mode as well! Covering the raid in this way with ToL is great for mana efficiency and allowed me to go into our phase 2 and phase 3 and 4 with a good amount of mana ready for the heavy raid damage incoming.</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I changed my spec slightly largely due to the Intermissions and any quick top-ups I was doing with Regrowth on OoC procs in the other phases. Normally I like running 3/3 in Living Seed, however, I found myself using Regrowth a lot more than usual while healing the raid, especially in those Intermission phases in Tree of Life form. I decided to change my spec and pick up 2/3 in Nature’s Bounty for the increased Regrowth crit chance. I opted not to go 3/3 as I preferred to keep Nature’s Cure for the magic dispel (Lava Waves aren’t necessarily deadly, but the dot is, so having a dispel ready for any raid member who accidentally got clipped was very helpful). I also kept points in Moonglow and Furor to maximise my mana pool and savings. My spec looked like this (<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0hbhZMZMfzudMruouo">8/2/31</a>):</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/resto_spec_8231_rag.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/resto_spec_8231_rag.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;">I must admit I enjoyed the reduced Nourish cast time from Nature’s Bounty as well. This ability feels much more like a nice tool for when we’re focussed on raid healing - as we spread Rejuvs, it makes it easier for us to cast a quick but mana efficient heal in the form of the hasted Nourish. We can either use that Nourish to perhaps small top up a raid member, top up a tank, refresh Lifebloom on a tank, or simply ensure our Harmony mastery buff remains up. This talent really doesn’t seem great for dedicated tank healing, though, as spreading 3 Rejuvs just to gain the hasted Nourish seems like a waste of globals and mana.<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I generally ended up using my second Tranq on the second intermission phase - I could have used it during the Molten Seeds in phase 2, however, as everyone was stacked up for portions of it, topping the raid up wasn’t usually too difficult. The second intermission phase, though, there’s additional heavy damage on the tanks, who are picking up the Scions. This can make balancing healing the tanks and raid challenging, and it ended up being more helpful having the Tranq ready for the raid in this phase to catch raid healing back up in between the large hits on the tanks.</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Phase 2 is an interesting phase. There are various strategies for dealing with the Molten Seeds, ours involved essentially a stack and run method for each wave. This was a fairly challenging phase to heal as well, mostly as there is heavy raid damage and a fair bit of movement. The seed explosions (and any remaining magma trap explosions) cause heavy raid damage which needs to be topped up fairly quickly. There’s also potential damage from World in Flames - while this damage is 100% avoidable, there are always instances when people take a tick, whether due to lag, getting into an awkward spot, etc. Generally it’s best to ensure people are topped off as the flames start to go off to give that leeway in case someone eats a tick by mistake. Tanks are also getting hit during these phases, particularly when on the run from the Seeds. I usually tried to save either my Swiftmends or a Nature’s Swiftness with Healing Touch for these times - they made some crucial saves on the move!</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Phase 3 is primarily a DPS burn with a lot of avoidable damage. You basically must beat the third meteor spawn - the third spawn drops two meteors, and having four meteors up in phase 4 is just... a guaranteed wipe pretty much! This phase has World in Flames again but it’s easily avoidable, so the majority of the damage is just on the tanks in this phase. Because the DPS is so tight, I actually get to chill by the tanks and be on meteor knockback duty along with helping on the tanks. </span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Phase 4 is a mix of heavy damage on the tanks and alternating heavy and light damage on the raid. There’s a bit of time before the first Frost Breadth spawn when Superheated starts stacking up on the raid, so the overall raid damage ramps up quite quickly. Once the raid is settled in the Breadth, though, damage drops dramatically (at least until you have to move to a new Breadth). Tank damage remains high and you have to keep an eye on any raid members who might have to kite a meteor out of the breadth spawn. Keep it together, though, and you’ll get him down!</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">One frustrating thing I found over the course of this fight was keeping my Lifebloomx3 stack on the tank. There are quick tank swaps in this fight due to the stacking dot Ragnaros places on the tank. This makes for a bit of an awkward decision - do I spend 3 globals applying a stack to the taunting tank, or leave it on the previous tank while healing the new one? The non-tanking tank will still take some damage from the dot, so it’s not necessarily a waste, but it is frustrating. I know our Pallies stopped switching beacons on every tank swap as they found it inefficient. </span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I ended up mostly planning my Lifebloom stacks in advance some. For example, in the seeds phase in Phase 2, the tank during the stage in which we had to run from the seed spawn would take a lot of damage from Rag while we were on the move, so I’d stack my LB on her to help increase the healing on her. Meanwhile the tank who taunted after the movement piece didn’t get hit as hard, due to Ragnaros stopping melees briefly while casting World in Flames. Going into the second intermission phase I placed LB on the tank I was healing for the Scion spawns. In phase 3 I kept my LB primarily on our warrior tank as he tanked the majority of p3 - a combination of avoidance and World in Flames casts meant the dot generally didn’t get too high on him, which also allowed our bear (Reesi!) to go cat form and add in some more damage.</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">This does highlight the bit of frustration with fights such as this though, as swapping our Lifebloom stacks between tanks in quick tank swap fights can be very inefficient and frustrating. I commented on this the other day in the Druid Class Feedback Blizzard had posted the other day (you can see links to the post and also my feedback in my post yesterday, viewable here: <b><a href="http://feraltree.blogspot.com/2011/09/resto-class-feedback.html">Resto Class Feedback</a></b>).</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Another good thing this fight especially highlights is Barkskin is your best friend! Every druid should really have this on their bars if they don’t have it already, as it’s such an amazing damage mitigation cooldown. I actually ended up planning out a lot of its use as well on this fight to maximise its effectiveness - I was generally able to use it every Magma Trap explosion, every Seed Explosion, and have it up for emergencies in World in Flames phases. It’s such a great ability both for this fight an others!</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Overall impressions: It was a very long haul but it certainly feels like an accomplishment, especially working with 24+ other people to execute all the coordination to down this boss. It was undoubtedly a team effort and I can’t praise my guildies enough for all the hard work put in. </span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Healing the fight was a lot of fun, especially planning when I wanted to use cooldowns, managing my mana throughout the fight, and even planning which heals I preferred to use and when to ensure I was getting the most out of my heals and keeping my mastery buff up.</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Druids especially shine on this fight I think, as our hots and raid healing abilities are extremely helpful for some of the movement portions of the fight, particularly when it coincides with heavy raid damage. We also can do an excellent job on tank healing - certainly a strong portion of my healing was on tanks as well as raid, but in particular I always feel Resto druids fit a nice niche of tank healing/support while being able to maintain good coverage on the raid. </span>Paladin’s Hand of Sacrifice was of course very helpful on the tanks, which is a bit unfortunate that Druid’s cannot match that ability. Shaman get a bit of the short end of the stick with all the movement in this fight, however they can perform very well if focussing on tanks. Priests of both specs seem to perform well - Holy’s Lightwells are extremely useful (provided your raid uses them of course!) and Guardian Spirit can be great for tanks on the move in Phase 2 and for the heavy damage in Phase 4. Discipline can also do well, though Power Word: barrier seems more useful for reducing trap or seed explosions in phase 2 and potentially in phase 4 when the raid is actually stacked up.</div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Now to prepare for patch 4.3 and the battles with Deathwing! I have a bunch of ideas for other posts too so now with some extra free time as we get back to a farm schedule, I'll try to get some more posts up soon. </span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Happy raiding!</span></div>Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-34068123058737413652011-09-12T14:13:00.005-04:002011-09-13T15:12:39.057-04:00Resto Class FeedbackThe blues have requested some class feedback, and we are happy to oblige! I left some feedback for Resto, which you can see at this link here: <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3123249662?page=7#132"><b>Resto Class Feedback</b></a>. Many 'Likes' are appreciated as it will hopefully help it get looked at by the blues! You can also find some good Bear feedback posts by Reesi and Arielle of <a href="http://theincbear.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=329">The Inconspicuous Bear</a> which I'm sure they'd appreciate you hitting 'Like' as well! Click for: <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3123249662?page=2#28"><b>Reesi's feedback</b></a> and<b> </b>click for: <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3123249662#19"><b>Arielle's Feedback</b></a>. As Reesi noted on her forums, If you agree with any of the ideas for notable posts, don't just say you agree and nothing else - Respond with the same answer. The only way we'll get attention to any feedback is if it's repeated again and again.<br />
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More (proper) posts are in the work so stay tuned! :D<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">ETA: Including my feedback:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Focus:</b> </span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">PVE Heroic Progression Raiding Content; primarily Resto.</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>What are your biggest quality-of-life issues?</b></span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b></b>Target swapping for Lifebloomx3 stacks on quick-taunt Tank fights (Ragnaros heroic and normal a perfect example) can be frustrating - I can either maintain the 3stack on the non-tanking tank in anticipation of the upcoming tank swap, or I have to spend 3 globals simply reapplying my Lifebloom stack to the new tank. If there was some way to move the 3 stack as a whole between tanks, that would be great. Perhaps LB may need to be reevaluated some, perhaps making the 3stack amount (or even 2 stack) the set amount for just a single application, as it can now only be on one target (then in tree form it would be spreadable over many people as usual). Ideas!</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">As others suggested earlier, a cosmetic perma tree of life would be nice (affected also by treant glyph or no glyph), perhaps only usable out of combat or something to negate confusion in pvp but allow for some fun /dancing and such around town.</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>What makes playing your class more fun?</b></span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b></b>I love everything about druids and especially healing. I feel like we’re in a great spot right now - our throughput is competitive (all of the classes throughput is relatively even by this point in the xpac), our Tranq is now a nice raid cooldown (even if it not a damage reduction one), and we have to make good use of all our spells and it feels like all of our spells are valuable. </span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Mana management is fun and, despite misconceptions, still a challenge (when not drastically overgearing content) to do well. I really love the importance of Int to our mana management and being able to make careful choices about secondary stats and managing cooldowns and mana throughout a fight to manage our mana well. </span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The Tree of Life cooldown has ended up being a lot of fun and useful, even if I do still miss being able to hop around as a tree in my downtime. It's really fun being able to pop it as a healing cooldown or even as a DPS cooldown on certain fights (alysra burnout, sinestra eggs, etc) or as a sort of mana cd when covering the raid with LB to conserve mana instead of rejuvs.</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>What makes playing your class less fun?</b></span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b></b>I still wish we had some damage reduction component. While we’re strong both in tank and raid healing now, for tanks at least we’re very behind in not having any sort of damage reduction. We don’t have an Inspiration reduced damage type talent and no damage reduction type cooldown (such as Hand of Sacrifice or Pain Suppression). Our healing output is strong and the ToL cooldown is really excellent and fun, it just feels like our only option is always to just heal harder, rather than being able to ever mitigate damage in some way.</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I also feel our talent tree is a little bloated still, and talents like Living Seed, Blessing of the Grove, and Nature’s Bounty are all a bit lackluster atm. They’re not hugely strong talents in themselves (tho the unlinking from Efflo was a good change) and taking points in any of them doesn’t feel hugely valuable. The reduced nourish cast of NB is alright, though if primarily spreading Rejuvs just to reduce the cast for nourish spam is wasteful of mana and GCDs. It seems more like a 'good, I'm raid healing, and as I'm doing that I can also go to do a quick top up and LB refresh on my tank with the quick Nourish'; which is useful, but if the goal was to help more direct Nourish use it seems a bit roundabout to try to achieve that.</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The Nature’s Cure talent I think should be looked at as well - as healers are the only role who can dispel magic off of friendly targets, I think this ability should be granted by choosing the Resto tree (and same for resto/holy for sham/pally) like the priest’s holy and disc specs. It seems a bit of a waste of a talent point for druids pallies and shaman to have to spec to get the magic dispel. While it’s not always necessary, there are several crucial fights where it’s extremely important to pick it up, and even 5man heroics pretty much require dispels.</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>How do you feel about your “rotation”?</b> </span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I think the current healing model for druids is really excellent. We can and should use all our spells, and they’re all valuable. Good druids especially will use all their direct and hot heals and maintain their Harmony proc.</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>What’s on your wish list for your class?</b></span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b></b>(see above answers, but quick list below:</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">-Easier LBx3 swaps for quick tank swap situations.</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">-A damage reduction talent (a la Inspiration) or cooldown (a la hand of sac) would be great.</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">-Improvement/revamp of lackluster talents Living Seed, BotG, Nature's Bounty.</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">-Genesis swapped with Nature's Grace in the Balance tree would be a nice change to pick that up, as it's often dropped for mana saving talents.</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">-Magic dispel part of Resto specialisation (untalented).</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">-Cosmetic tree of life/treant, perhaps while out of combat only.</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>What spells do you use the least?</b></span></div><div style="font: 16.0px Times; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b></b>Think I use all my spells ^.^</span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div>Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-29071691026579216052011-08-03T05:15:00.000-04:002011-08-03T05:18:18.876-04:00Fire Nyan Kitty!So I haven't posted in way too long (my apologies!), but thought this deserved a post because it's amazing(ly fun). Our bearcat Reesi (of <a href="http://www.theincbear.com/">The Inconspicuous Bear</a>) got a firekitty staff a couple of weeks ago (<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=71466">Fandral's Flamescythe</a>) which gives her the incredibly fun ability to turn into a firecat while in cat form! Sadly we've only seen two of these drop so far so I don't have one yet, but hopefully will soon!<br />
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Fortunately we can have pretend firekitty fun with <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=58489">Potions of Illusion</a>!<br />
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Also, many druids out there will have discovered that you can shift into bird form without losing your illusion, which leads to amazing floating kitties...<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_080311_022808.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_080311_022808.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Which, in turn, led to the following video of pure awesome:<br />
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<object height="349" width="560"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/l849tPu4kpw?version=3&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/l849tPu4kpw?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="349" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object><br />
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:D Best thing ever amirite?!<br />
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At any rate! Again, apologies for the lack of posts lately, we've been full on into progression content in-game and out of game has been pretty busy as well! I would like to do some posts about the current content and I have some ideas in the works, just need to set aside some time to get them posted up. I'm excited for the final fight of the tier though - we're working on Heroic Ragnaros now and it's shaping up to be a very challenging (and long) fight! The world first kills have started rolling in now, and a big congratulations to all the guilds who have taken him down so far! With some solid work ahead for this week hopefully it won't be too long before we see a kill as well.<br />
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Enjoy the video!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_071211_031803.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_071211_031803.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-31693296958017977712011-06-27T17:15:00.001-04:002011-06-27T17:28:47.461-04:004.2 Resto Changes and You!Patch 4.2 is finally upon us and should be landing this week! There are plenty of changes and new content coming, including the new Firelands raid zone! For the latest news and updates I suggest checking out <a href="http://www.mmo-champ.com/">MMO-Champion</a>.<br />
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I'll be updating my Resto and Feral guides over the course of this week. For the moment though I'd like to focus on two important changes for Resto: The Innervate changes and the new Mastery.<br />
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<b>Innervate in 4.2</b><br />
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Innervate is undergoing a change in 4.2, but it's important to fully understand this change.<br />
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<b>Innervate used on oneself is unchanged.</b><br />
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When the casting druid uses Innervate on his or herself, the druid will still receive 20% of their maximum mana.<br />
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The change to Innervate is when it's cast on other targets, eg, the druid casts an Innervate on a Pally. In 4.2, an Innervate will cause a target to receive 5% of their maximum mana pool - so, in the example of a druid casting their innervate on a Pally, the Innervate will give the Pally 5% of the Pally's maximum mana pool. This is a substantial nerf to Resto and Balance druid Innervates (though it's technically a slight buff to Feral Innervates), as apparently sharing Innervates was accounting for too much mana savings, especially at higher gear levels.<br />
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So what does this mean for us? Well, you'll be much less likely to be giving your Innervates away, and overall Innervate will be a bit less desired by other healers. An important thing to note is trading Innervates with another Resto druid will no longer be a mana gain - the Innervate you give to the other druid will be substantially less and vice versa, so this is no longer a viable strategy for mana return. For maximum mana gains, you'll want to be Innervating yourself.<br />
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<b>Glyph of Innervate</b><br />
It's very very important this is understood - <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=40908">Glyph of Innervate</a> is unchanged in 4.2. The tooltip has been updated to reflect what this actually means - the casting druid will receive half of their Innervate when they cast Innervate on another target, ie half of 20% of their maximum mana pool, that is to say 10%. This means you will <b>still receive 10% of your maximum mana pool</b> when you cast your Innervate on another target while glyphed.<br />
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With that in mind, <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=40908">Glyph of Innervate</a> is still a useful glyph in 4.2. While your Innervate won't be as valuable to others as it is currently, it can still be extremely useful for people, especially if a fellow healer is out of mana (or perhaps was just battle rezzed), or even for a DPS that could use it. Balance druids can also still help out their healers with an Innervate. The nice thing about continuing to use this Glyph is it gives you the flexibility to share your Innervate with someone else should they need it while still receiving some of the mana return yourself.<br />
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<b>New Resto Mastery</b><br />
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</b><br />
I discussed the new Resto Mastery some already in an earlier post, but I wanted to refresh on it with 4.2 finally going live. Our new mastery is the following:<br />
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<a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/spell=77495">Harmony</a>: Increases direct healing by 10% and your direct healing spells grant you a 10% bonus to your periodic healing for 10 sec. Each point of mastery increases each bonus by an additional 1.25%.<br />
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This is a really nice change for Resto druids, increasing our direct healing and making a nice interaction between our direct heals and our HoTs. Every time we cast a direct heal (Healing Touch, Nourish, Regrowth, and also Swiftmend), we will gain the buff Harmony which increases the healing done by our HoTs.<br />
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We ideally want to maintain as close to 100% uptime on the buff as possible. It will be very important for raid healers to make sure they're maintaining the buff to increase their HoTs as well as the tank healers. Swiftmend will proc the buff, but the cooldown on Swiftmend is 15 seconds and the buff remains active for 10 seconds, so you'll be losing uptime on the buff if you only refresh it with Swiftmend. It's reasonable, but ideally you won't be losing any uptime at all. If you're largely raid healing, you're still likely keeping your Lifebloom rolling on the tank or another person, so refreshing it with a Nourish or other direct heal should help you maintain the buff. Tank healers and those who watch both shouldn't have too much issue maintaining the buff.<br />
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Keeping track of the Harmony buff will go a long way to helping you maintain good uptime on it. For those that use the addon <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/powerauras-classic.aspx">Power Auras</a> (an excellent addon which I highly recommend), the following is a code I made which is helpful for keeping track of the mastery buff. It will show you the buff is active and the time remaining on it so you can see when you need to refresh it.<br />
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The import code is this:<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Version:4.19; b:0.0549; g:0.4863; icon:Spell_Nature_HealingWay; buffname:Harmony; r:0.1843; x:-85; customname:Harmony; texture:23; alpha:1; inVehicle:0; wowtex:true; combat:true; size:0.25; y:-160; ismounted:0; timer.b:0.9294; timer.h:2; timer.Texture:WhiteRabbit; timer.enabled:true; timer.r:0.9882; timer.cents:false; timer.Relative:CENTER; timer.UseOwnColor:true</span><br />
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The Aura itself looks like this (seen with my full Resto power aura setup):<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_052711_153606.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_052711_153606.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
The Harmony aura is the leaf on the left hand side with the timer.<br />
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My full set of power aura codes are available in my post here: <a href="http://feraltree.blogspot.com/p/my-user-interface-addons.html">My User Interface / Addons</a>.<br />
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Happy patch day! Don't forget to update your addons!Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-11543538020415360292011-06-02T18:20:00.001-04:002011-06-02T19:14:21.745-04:00PTR Feedback - Resto Mastery Duration<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_121110_223157.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_121110_223157.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I decided to make a post on the WoW <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/1181024/">PTR Discussion Forum</a> regarding the Resto Mastery to give some feedback on the Harmony duration and thought I'd post it here as well to hopefully increase readers of it a bit! You can see the original post on the forums here: <b><a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2592645332">[Feedback] Harmony (Resto Mastery) Duration</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">. You can upvote the thread by hitting 'Like' in the top right hand corner and feel free to contribute with any constructive comments, thoughts, or ideas of your own! (Just keep it constructive so we avoid the forum trolls).</span></b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Full post is the following:</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">As a preface, I’m very pleased and excited about the 4.2 mastery changes for Resto druids. The change not only boosts our direct heals and our interaction between our direct heals and HoTs (with the former activating the HoT buff), it should go a long way to encourage more direct healing from Resto druids and clever play and not just mindless spamming. I was also pleased to see on PTR that the direct heals actually proc a buff for Harmony, which is extremely helpful in tracking its uptime, whether through an addon like Power Auras or simply glancing up at our buffs to ensure it’s up.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">My only concern is with the actual duration of the buff. At only 10 seconds, it’s feeling very restrictive. Taking into account the GCD following the spell which activated it, the buff is only active for ~9 seconds, and 1-3 seconds of that will be required to reactivate it (through casting a direct heal) if we want to maintain continuous uptime, which will be the ideal we aim for. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">A 15 second duration would be nice, however, that may seem a bit too easy to want to implement, as it could easily be refreshed by simply Swiftmending on cooldown, which could quickly become a mindless auto-cast without any real thought. Particularly with Swiftmend, we don’t want the spell to become the main mastery activator, especially for raid healers, as it could likely just lead to wasted Swiftmends hit unnecessarily without thought just for the mastery proc.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The 10 second duration should be very maintainable in 5mans, and likely not too bad in 10mans, where there's generally plenty of direct healing going on along with party/raid healing, especially in 10s with generally only 2 or 3 healers. In 25 man raids in particular I see this being much more difficult and restrictive, particularly for those druids who are focussed primarily on raid healing rather than necessarily tank healing. If refreshing the Mastery with a Nourish or Healing Touch, that's essentially 2-3 seconds of the buff spent simply refreshing it. You could arguably refresh with a Regrowth, particularly if you have an OoC proc, but that seems like it might just encourage poor and random Regrowth use. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">A 12 to 14 second duration for the buff seems like it may be a good balance. Not so long that it could be so easily refreshed by just spamming Swiftmend off CD without thought, but long enough that you don't feel you’re constantly struggling to refresh it and can actually make good use of spreading your HoTs on targets while raid healing and take advantage of the HoT boost component of the mastery. Regardless of final duration time chosen, definitely something that should be adjusted and ideally increased.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Overall, very positive about the mastery change and am looking forward to when it goes live. </span></div>Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-68042473755543083122011-05-28T15:50:00.001-04:002011-05-28T15:50:37.620-04:004.2 PTR - Alysrazor Testing and New Mastery Power Aura<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_051611_202647.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_051611_202647.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
I'd hoped to have a fair few more raid previews from the PTR, but a mixture of bugged encounters, rescheduled testing, and just fellow raiders having issues getting onto the PTR (and staying connected), the only real preview of interest is a look at Alysrazor.<br />
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For those of you who quested in Hyjal, you may remember the Green Dragon <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=38917">Alysra</a> - we deliver the prisoner Arch Druid Staghelm to her (which apparently seems to have been a bad idea). It seems she has joined the ranks of Ragnaros along with Staghelm (who we will also face in Firelands).<br />
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The fight itself is quite fun. She drops molten feathers which players can pick up, increasing their movement speed and allowing them to cast while moving. If you pick up three, you'll gain Wings of Flame and be able to fly up into the air. There are fiery rings to pass through while in the air which give you a haste buff and allow you to stay in the air.<br />
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Meanwhile there are adds to deal with on the ground, so any DPS not chasing her in the air can assist on those. There are humanoid adds which cast brushfires, basically balls of moving flame, so killing those adds keeps the ground from becoming covered with fire. There are also two Hatchling adds which the tanks have to manage. Lava worms spawn out of the ground and you kite the hatchlings to the worms to feed them to prevent them from gaining a damage buff.<br />
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Our bear tank, Reesi (of <a href="http://www.theincbear.com/">The Inconspicuous Bear</a>), frapsed our 10 man kill, so you can get a glimpse of the fight here!<br />
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I'll leave the preview at that as I expect there'll still be a lot more tuning and adjusting to the fight. The 10m version felt a bit undertuned so it will likely in the very least be buffed some.<br />
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<b>New Resto Mastery</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
The new Resto mastery (<a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/spell=77495">Harmony</a>: Increases direct healing by 10% and your direct healing spells grant you a 10% bonus to your periodic healing for 10 sec. Each point of mastery increases each bonus by an additional 1.25%.) has been implemented on the PTR, and it does indeed proc a buff on you. This will help immensely in keeping track of the Mastery and ensuring we maintain good uptime on it.<br />
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I do feel the actual time of it could be increased. A 15 second duration would be nice, however, that may seem a bit too easy for Blizz to want to implement, as it could easily be refreshed by simply Swiftmending on cooldown, which could quickly become a mindless auto-cast without any real thought. This is obviously trying to encourage our direct heals along with our HoTs, which is good. The 10 second duration should be very maintainable in 5mans and likely 10mans, where there's plenty of direct healing going on along with raid healing. In 25s I could see this being a bit trickier, particularly for those druids who are focussed primarily on raid healing rather than necessarily tank healing. If refreshing the Mastery with a Nourish or Healing Touch, that's essentially 2-3 seconds of the buff spent simply refreshing it. You could arguably refresh with a faster Regrowth, particularly if you have an OoC proc, but that seems like it might just encourage poor and random Regrowth use.<br />
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A 12 second duration for the buff seems like it may be a good balance. Not too long that it could be so easily refreshed by just spamming Swiftmend, but long enough that you don't feel your constantly having to refresh it.<br />
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Regardless, having a means to track the buff will be essential for keeping good uptime on it. <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/powerauras-classic.aspx">Power Auras Classic</a> is great for this, and I've made a Power Aura (which you can edit to your liking) to track the buff. Keep in mind, this only works on the PTR for the moment, as the new Mastery won't be live until 4.2.<br />
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The import code is this:<br />
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<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Version:4.19; b:0.0549; g:0.4863; icon:Spell_Nature_HealingWay; buffname:Harmony; r:0.1843; x:-85; customname:Harmony; texture:23; alpha:1; inVehicle:0; wowtex:true; combat:true; size:0.25; y:-160; ismounted:0; timer.b:0.9294; timer.h:2; timer.Texture:WhiteRabbit; timer.enabled:true; timer.r:0.9882; timer.cents:false; timer.Relative:CENTER; timer.UseOwnColor:true</span></div><br />
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The Aura itself looks like this (seen with my full Resto power aura setup):<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_052711_153606.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_052711_153606.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
The Harmony aura is the leaf on the left hand side with the timer - this way you can see the buff is active and also how much time is remaining on it so you can refresh it as needed.<br />
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My full set of Resto power aura codes are available in my post here: <a href="http://feraltree.blogspot.com/p/my-user-interface-addons.html">My User Interface / Addons</a>.<br />
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Enjoy! :DFeral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-89182842733440297102011-05-13T16:17:00.000-04:002011-05-13T16:26:09.273-04:004.2 Mastery change, Innervate nerf, and PTR Raid Testing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_051211_205757.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_051211_205757.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Patch 4.2 is under testing on the PTR and the news keeps rolling in! While everything is still very much subject to change, there are some interesting changes slated for Druids already, including a new Mastery for Resto and a very significant change to how Innervate works. We've also had two of the new Firelands bosses up for testing and I've got some cool screenshots of those as well! As you can see in my screenshot above, the new Firelands zone looks awesome. That shot is actually taken inside the instance - it's a massive zone, and you can mount up to ride to each boss.<br />
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<b>New Resto Mastery</b><br />
There was a recent blue post with 4.2 patch notes which included this gem:<br />
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'Symbiosis (Mastery) has been removed and replaced with Harmony. Harmony increases direct healing by an additional 10%, and casting direct healing spells grants an additional 10% bonus to periodic healing for 10 seconds. Each point of mastery increases each bonus by an additional 1.25%. Healing Touch, Nourish, Swiftmend, and the initial heal from Regrowth are considered direct healing spells for the purposes of this Mastery. All other healing from druid spells is considered periodic.'<br />
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This is looking like a really great change, so hopefully it'll make it through testing to live. The old / current Mastery has some issues; though it's not too bad, it's much stronger in 5- and 10-mans, where HoTs can more easily line up with other heals. Probably the most frequent question I get is 'Should I be putting Rejuvs on my Wild Growth targets to activate the Mastery?', which really shouldn't be done unnecessarily (ie, on targets that don't need all that healing), so it likely ends up just encouraging spamming.<br />
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The new Mastery not only will boost our direct heals and encourage more direct healing, it's also a great boost to our direct heals and hence our tank healing as well as our raid healing. The mastery will proc off of Swiftmend too, so even if you're focussing on raid healing, you'll still be gaining the Mastery through your Swiftmends.<br />
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By the sound of it, it seems like it may proc a buff (increases periodic healing for 10 seconds), which would be nice if an actual buff comes up as that can be easily tracked with something like a Power Aura to make sure we maintain it, but we'll have to see. Either way, a very positive change!<br />
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<b>Innervate changes</b><br />
The Innervate changes slated for 4.2 so far are mostly nerfing Innervate's effect for OTHER healers. The effect when used on oneself will be the same - a 20% mana return. The change is when we cast our Innervate on someone else, it will now cause them to regenerate 5% of THEIR maximum mana.<br />
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Innervate: now causes the target to regenerate 5% of their maximum mana over 10 sec. Still regenerates 20% of maximum mana on self cast.<br />
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So this is basically just a nerf to Innervate trading. The Glyph of Innervate will be unchanged - if we cast it on someone else, we'll still receive half of our own Innervate (so 10%), but the other person will only get the 5% of their maximum mana rather than our 20%. If this change goes live, Innervate trading will basically be worthless as a mana strategy. It's still certainly viable for helping other healers when they're in need of mana, but trading the Innervates around won't be anywhere near as powerful as it is currently.<br />
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This is a slight buff to Feral innervates, though, as the Innervate on someone else will amount to 5% of the target's maximum mana (assuming that it is based on the target's maximum mana, which it appears to be), so Feral innervates will be slightly more useful now.<br />
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<b>PTR Testing!</b><br />
I've been hopping on the PTR for some of the raid testing. The new Firelands zone looks awesome inside - it's a massive space and it just looks great. We've tried out two of the bosses so far, Beth'tilac the spider boss and Lord Rhyolith. I won't go into too much detail on the fights yet, particularly as they're still subject to changing and tuning, but this should whet the tastebuds!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_051111_195626.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_051111_195626.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>This is Beth'tilac. The fight itself looks like it will be pretty interesting, though it may be yet another fight that's bad for melee (and Rhyolith seemed bad for melee too, to be honest). The fight itself was ridiculously overtuned (mostly in Phase 2, where outgoing damage was ridiculous). The boss itself retreats up on top of her web when you engage. Some of the adds you deal with lower themselves down on webs, and you kill them to get a web vehicle which will transport raid members up on top of the web to engage the boss. Fortunately the web area is a normal platform - when I first heard about going into the webs in the Blizzard previews, I had a sudden fear that we'd be hanging upside down or something ridiculous. The upper web area though is a normal, fairly flat surface, though, so there aren't any weird swimming mechanics or camera angle quirks to it, which is great.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_051211_193904.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_051211_193904.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>This is Lord Rhyolith. This will be a fight that ultimately requires a lot of coordination. He doesn't have a threat table (tanks will be busy rounding up adds), instead you attack his Left or Right Foot. DPSing either foot will cause him to turn in that direction, so you steer him around the area by DPSing the Left or Right foot, whichever way you want him to turn. He starts with an 80 stack of armour, which reduces his damage taken by 80%, so you have to steer him over volcanoes to melt the armour off and increase his damage taken. It looked like both feet share a healthpool, and supposedly his body will not be targetable (or at least not damageable) when this goes live - we were able to target it on the PTR, but it was obviously unnecessary to do so.<br />
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I'll leave it at that for now! As there may not be many screenshots of these bosses and Firelands things around yet, people are welcome to use my screenshots, but I ask that if you do so please link back to the blog for crediting. :)<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_051211_194756.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_051211_194756.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-45395076602334653932011-04-30T21:54:00.004-04:002011-05-01T01:40:51.912-04:00Raid Encounter Guides - Sinestra (Bastion of Twilight)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_030811_010354.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_030811_010354.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Sinestra, Consort of Deathwing, is the optional, Heroic-only end boss in the Bastion of Twilight. To even reach her you must kill Cho’gall on Heroic mode, which opens a trapdoor down into the deep cavern where Sinestra dwells with her eggs.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The Sinestra fight is both fun and challenging. The DPS check is extremely tight, which in turn makes the healing check fairly tight as well, as you will be hard pressed to run more than 5 or 6 healers. You will only need 2 tanks. Your healers will need to be able to dispel magic.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I’ll break this guide down into an Ability list, a simple breakdown of the phases, then a detailed look at some of the more critical aspects of the fight.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Abilities</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=87299">Mana Barrier</a> - Envelops the caster in a powerful barrier that continually replenishes any lost health, at the expense of the caster’s mana.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92944">Flame Breath</a> - Deals 95000 to 105000 Fire damage to all enemies in front of the caster.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92949">Twilight Blast</a> - Blasts an enemy for 166250 to 183750 Shadow damage</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> - Deals increasing Shadow damage over one minute. When dispelled bounces to two nearby allies of the afflicted player.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=92954">Twilight Slicer</a> - Beam of concentrated twilight energy, dealing 50,000 Shadow damage every 0.3 seconds to any enemy in contact with it.</div><br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=92958">Twilight Pulse</a> - Deals 27000 to 33000 damage every 0.5 seconds to enemies within 10 yards.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=87945">Twilight Extinction</a> - Deals 475000 to 525000 Shadow damage to all enemies within reach.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Whelps</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=92953">Twilight Spit</a> - Spits Twilight energy at an enemy, dealing 3800 to 4200 Shadow damage and increases Shadow damage taken by 10%. Stacks.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=92950">Twilight Essence</a> - Deals 9250 to 10750 Shadow damage to enemies within the bubbling Essence. Dropped by whelps the first time they die; revives any whelps who die within the pool.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Spitecallers</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=92947">Unleash Essence</a> - Releases a torrent of twilight energy that afflicts all nearby enemies, dealing damage equal to 10% of their maximum health every second.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=92946">Indomitable</a> - Regains control through a surge of sheer will, becoming immune to all bonds and restraints until stopped. Deals 40000 Shadow damage to enemies within 10 yards and knocks them back.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Twilight Drake</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=93544">Twilight Breath</a> - Deals Shadow damage in a frontal cone.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Calen</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=87231">Fiery Barrier</a> - Protects nearby allies from dark magic, reducing their Shadow damage taken by 99%.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=87946">Essence of the Red</a> - The blessing of Alexstrasza is applied to all allies nearby. Restores 5% of maximum mana per second. Grants 100% melee, ranged, and spell haste. Lasts for 3 minutes.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92941">Pyrrhic Focus</a> - Evelops the caster in a fiery aura that continually restores mana at the expense of the caster’s health.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_030711_235100.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_030711_235100.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Strategy</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Phase 1</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">When you first engage Sinestra, she is afflicted by a debuff that causes her abilities to do 40% less damage and she begins the fight with 40% less HP. This first phase is primarily a DPS burn - Sinestra needs to be burned from 60% HP down to 30% as quickly as possible, ideally avoiding a third Whelp spawn and a second <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a>.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Sinestra’s primary ability is <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92944">Flame Breath</a>, a raid-wide AoE attack which she casts every 20 seconds. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The whelps spawn every 50 seconds and should be picked up by the off-tank. Ideally you want to avoid a third whelp spawn. The whelps tend to aggro onto the healers, so it’s usually best for the OT to position near the healers.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">You will get at least one <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> during this phase. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> is a minute long debuff which needs to be dispelled off of afflicted targets well before this duration is up - this debuff applies increasing Shadow damage over time and will kill anyone affected long before the minute is up. When dispelled (or when the target dies, from <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> or something else), the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> will jump to two other friendly targets. Careful control of <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> dispels is crucial to avoid it getting out of control. It’s usually best to assign one person to handle dispels, with another as backup. Detailed discussion of <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> is below.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">You will also get 2-3 Twilight Slicers in this phase, so your raid needs to be positioned and prepared to deal with those. Detailed discussion of the Twilight Slicers is below.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Raid damage is pretty light in Phase 1 until the first <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92944">Flame Breath</a>, so any healers not worrying about tanks should DPS as much as they can in Phase 1, at least until that first breath goes out.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Phase 2</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Phase 2 begins when Sinestra reaches 30% health. She will cast <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=87299">Mana Barrier</a> on herself, healing herself to full. She will begin to cast <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=87945">Twilight Extinction</a>, so it’s imperative the raid moves quickly to the back of the room to where the friendly NPC Calen has joined the fray. Calen will cast <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=87231">Fiery Barrier</a>, and all raid members must ensure they are inside the barrier, as it will protect them from <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=87945">Twilight Extinction</a>.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The whelps from Phase 1 should be brought to the back of the room with the rest of the raid and AoE’d down in a pile. The dead whelps will create a pool of <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=92950">Twilight Essence</a> when they die the first time which will resurrect them - the respawned whelps need to be picked back up and AoE’d down again, ensuring they die outside of the pool. They will not create a puddle when they die the second time.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">There are several things to deal with once the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=87231">Fiery Barrier</a> drops.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Spitecallers will spawn from the entry tunnel and will largely be handled by your melee DPS and the whelp tank. The Spitecallers will continuously try to cast <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=92947">Unleash Essence</a>, which will very likely lead to a raid wipe if successfully cast, so a careful interrupt rotation needs to be in place. Ordinary interrupts (Kick, Mind Freeze, etc) can NOT be used though - detailed explanation on the Spitecallers is below.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Your range DPS (and possibly some melee) should head back to Sinestra and the two <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=46842">Pulsing Twilight Eggs</a> on either side of Sinestra, the paths to which are no longer protected by fire. The range DPS should be DPSing Sinestra as soon as they can leave the Fiery Barrier to force her to remove the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=87654">Twilight Carapace</a> which protects the eggs to shield herself. DPS should be split evenly to kill the Eggs the second the Twilight Carapace is removed. DPS needs to be strong and fast to kill the eggs before Sinestra replaces the Twilight Carapace - if the Eggs don’t die before the Carapace is replaced, you will likely wipe. You may want to pot on the eggs to avoid Phase 2 wipes due to slow DPS. You should also try to maximize DPS time on the eggs, predotting while finishing DPS on Sinestra until she removes the </span><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=87654">Twilight Carapace</a> from the eggs so that you can open full blast and already have DoTs ticking without losing DPS time on the eggs.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">There will also be Twilight Drakes spawning in this phase which should be picked up by the Sinestra tank. These can be DPS’d after the Eggs die by the ranged DPS as the raid is getting back into position. The Drakes do a frontal cone but do not do much damage otherwise.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Spitecaller and Drake spawns are somewhat subject to RNG, and there can be a bit of luck involved in how many spawn. Fast DPS on the Eggs can also help to push past late spawns.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Healing is again light in this phase - your two tanks will need healing and a healer can also cast some heals onto Calen (who will be afflicted by <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92941">Pyrrhic Focus</a>). Unless an <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=92947">Unleash Essence</a> gets off, there will be no other healing needed, so any healers with decent DPS should be assisting on Eggs or Spitecallers (Druids, Priests, and Shaman are generally best, whereas Pallies can remain on the tanks).</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Phase 3 will begin when the two Eggs die.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Phase 3</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Phase 3 begins when the two Pulsing Twilight Eggs are dead. Finish up any remaining Drakes and Spitecallers as she transitions and return to your Phase 1 positioning.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Phase 3 is the same as Phase 1 in terms of abilities - Sinestra will continue to cast <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92944">Flame Breath</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> will be going out to the raid, Whelps will spawn, and there will be more Twilight Slicers to avoid.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Sinestra has healed herself to full, however, so she is back to full health and to full ability power - all of her abilities will now be hitting 40% harder than they did in Phase 1. It is imperative raid members be topped off before every <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92944">Flame Breath</a> or they will die.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">To help with the increase in Sinestra’s health and damage, Calen casts <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=87946">Essence of the Red</a> on the raid, granting 100% melee, ranged, and spell haste, and restoring 5% of maximum mana per second. This buff lasts for 3 minutes, and ideally you want to get Sinestra down to at least 20% health when this buff falls off.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Good handling of the whelps in this phase is important, as you will be getting many more waves than in phase 1. You will want to have members turn and kill the whelps before they get out of control to prepare for subsequent waves. It is helpful to have a Paladin as your OT for the whelps, as they can bubble off the stacks of <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=92953">Twilight Spit</a> in between waves. You may also wish to have your OT and MT swap partway through phase 3 for the stacks to fall again.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> must also be kept under good control. As of 4.1, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> avoids jumping to tanks, which is extremely helpful in controlling it (as it generally would need to be instantly dispelled off tanks in phase 3).</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Wrack</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">It is crucial the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> debuff is appropriately handled throughout Phase 1 and Phase 3. It is generally best to assign one person to handle the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> dispels. It is useful for all healers to pick up a magic dispel to be ready as backup should the designated dispeller die or need assistance.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> - Deals increasing Shadow damage over one minute. When dispelled bounces to two nearby allies of the afflicted player. If a person dies with Wrack on them, it will also bounce to two other raid members.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">It’s best to keep <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> on as few people as possible, so timing the dispels well is essential. You will need a way to see how long the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> debuff has been on a target for. For those who use Vuhdo, enter Wrack as a custom debuff and ensure ‘Alive Time’ is ticked. For those who use Grid, the addon <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/gridstatussinestra.aspx">GridStatusSinestra</a> will monitor it.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The first <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> of each set applied you ideally want to dispel at around 18 seconds. In Phase 3 especially, you will likely want to cooldown the target, with something like Guardian Spirit. For later <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wracks</a> and the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> jumps, you will want to dispel between roughly 10-18 seconds, dependent on Sinestra’s Flame Breath timer (particularly in Phase 3), the person’s HP, what class they are (and whether they have a personal cooldown to help mitigate it), what cooldowns are available to them, and how many Wracks are out.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">It is extremely helpful to have one of your raid healers focus on healing targets with <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> to ensure they are getting enough heals and that they are topped off before each Flame Breath.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">As of 4.1, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> will avoid jumping onto tanks, which is incredibly helpful for managing <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a>. Should <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> jump onto a tank in phase 3, they will likely need to be instantly dispelled, as the incoming damage will be too great to add a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92955">Wrack</a> on top of that.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Spitecallers</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The Spitecallers in Phase 2 are tricky adds to deal with. It’s crucial their cast, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=92947">Unleash Essence</a>, doesn’t get off. Normal interrupts and stuns do NOT work on the adds - if you try to interrupt with Kick, Mind Freeze, Pummel, or stun with a Hammer of Justice, Charge, Death Coil, etc, the Spitecaller will gain <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=92946">Indomitable</a> - Regains control through a surge of sheer will, becoming immune to all bonds and restraints until stopped. Deals 40000 Shadow damage to enemies within 10 yards and knocks them back.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">If the Spitecaller gains <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=92946">Indomitable</a>, it will almost certainly get off a cast of <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=92947">Unleash Essence</a>, which will lead to a lot of unnecessary raid damage and very likely lead to the whelp tank’s death (as the stacks of Twilight Spit could lead to a one-shot).</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Instead, you need to use controls which break on damage to interrupt the cast. Some you can use are Gouge (Glyph of Gouge is extremely helpful), Blind, Death Grip, Hibernate, etc. (I don't particularly recommend Hibernate, as it has a cast time which is the same length as the </span><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=92947">Unleash Essence</a> cast).</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Gouge is most reliable for the interrupt used. Death Grips can be helpful as the adds spawn - it can whip the Spitecaller away from the entrance point, helping to make the next add spawned easier to target should the first Spitecaller still be up when the new one spawns.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Whelps</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Whelps spawn every 50 seconds in Phase 1 and 3. Their main attack is <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=92953">Twilight Spit</a> as well as melee hits, which in itself are not very hard, however the Twilight Spit causes a stacking debuff which increases Shadow damage taken by 10%. As more of these adds are up, the tank handling the whelps will take increasing damage. A paladin tank is very helpful on the whelps as they can bubble off the stacks.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">When the whelps first die, they create pools of <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=92950">Twilight Essence</a>, which deals Shadow damage to raid members standing in them and will resurrect any whelps dead in them. The pools are only created the first time the whelps die, so when they resurrect they should be moved outside of the pool to be killed a second time.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The whelps from phase 1 which are killed at the phase 2 transition should ideally be killed in the back as out of the way as possible to ensure the pool is out of the way. In phase 3 the whelp deaths need to also be controlled, ideally the first waves dying towards the back of the room and away from the raid. Generally ranged should be able to turn and kill the whelps when called for it. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">How you kill the whelps (AoE’d down at once or dropped in singles) and after how many waves each time comes down to your raid’s strategy, but ultimately it’s crucial the pools are kept as small and out of the way as possible.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Twilight Orbs/Slicers</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Welcome to Cutters 4.0! </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Throughout Phase 1 and 3 Twilight Orbs will spawn and target random raid members. It is extremely important to note: The Twilight Orbs do NOT place a debuff on their targets! The orbs affix to their targets with a thin purple tether. The Twilight Orbs will spawn and within a few seconds tether to their target, then a large <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=92954">Twilight Slicer</a> will connect between the two Orbs and the Orbs will chase their target. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The two Orbs need to be kited away from the raid such that the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=92954">Twilight Slicer</a> doesn’t lop anyone’s head off (including the kiters). The two kiters will need to find a way to loop around each other so that they avoid killing each other and get back to their original position quickly to maximize DPS time. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The Orbs themselves do <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=92958">Twilight Pulse</a>, which deals 27000 to 33000 Shadow damage every 0.5 seconds to enemies within 10 yards, so both raid members and kiters need to get clear of the Orbs. They do not begin pulsing until about 5 seconds after they spawn.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">If the tethered person dies for any reason - the Orb will retarget onto a high aggro target, usually a healer. The purple tether will not reappear - the Orb will simply drift towards its aggro target. The raid must be prepared should the original tether dies (though ideally they will not).</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Positioning in Phase 1 and 3 can be the same and should be set up to maximize the space for the kiters. An L-shape is often successful or other various lines to allow raiders to move out and away before looping back to their original position.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Spatial awareness is critical for the Slicers as there is no debuff or other marker on Orb targets. The thin, purple tether to the targeted player is all there is to notify which is the Orb’s target, so players need to notice when and where the orbs are spawning, spot the tether, and adjust to avoid the orbs or to kite as necessary.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_032811_020901.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_032811_020901.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><b>Good Luck and Have Fun!</b><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-33865043212187525452011-04-26T13:45:00.001-04:002011-04-26T15:39:15.202-04:00Patch 4.1 Druid Changes and Resto SpecsHappy Patch Day everyone! 4.1 finally arrives this week! Be sure to open your launcher up early to download the patch and don't forget to update all of your addons.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/crabby_druidsbuffed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="292" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/crabby_druidsbuffed.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
The<a href="http://feraltree.blogspot.com/p/cataclysm-restoration-druid-guide.html"> <b>Resto Guide</b></a> and <a href="http://feraltree.blogspot.com/p/cataclysm-feral-druid-guide.html"><b>Feral Guide</b></a> are updated for 4.1, but I wanted to get this post up first for a nice summary of the changes as well as a look at the Resto talent tree changes.<br />
<br />
Let's start by taking a look at the official patch notes for druids, before diving into some Resto spec options with the altered talent tree! Full patch notes can be seen on MMO-Champ here: <a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2264-Patch-4.1-Rise-of-the-Zandalari-Features">Patch 4.1 Rise of the Zandalari Features</a>.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Lacerate bonus threat has been removed and replaced with increased initial damage done.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Efflorescence has a new spell effect.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Enrage no longer increases physical damage taken.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Lifebloom's bloom effect has been reduced by 20%.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Prowl has a new icon.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Savage Defense has been redesigned slightly. Instead of a single charge absorption, it now places an absorption effect on the druid absorbing up to 35% of the druid's attack power (modified by mastery, if applicable) in damage and lasting 10 seconds. There are no longer any charges on the effect.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Stampeding Roar's duration has been increased to 8 seconds, up from 6. The movement speed effect has been increased to 60%, up from 40% and is no longer cancelled by cancelling shapeshift form.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Swipe (Bear) cooldown has been reduced to 3 seconds, down from 6, and is now on trainable at level 18 (training cost has been reduced). In addition, the bonus threat from this ability has been removed and replaced with increased damage done.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Swipe (Cat) damage has been doubled.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Thrash bonus threat has been removed and replaced with increased damage done.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Druids now innately have 100% pushback protection from damage while channeling Tranquility.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Balance</b></span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Starsurge damage has been reduced by 20%.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Solar Beam is now more responsive when enemies move into or out of it.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Feral</b></span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Berserk is no longer on the global cooldown.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Feral Swiftness now also causes Dash and Stampeding Roar to have a 50/100% chance to instantly remove all movement impairing effects from the affected targets when used.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Restoration</b></span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Gift of Nature (passive) also reduces Tranquility's cooldown by 2.5/5 minutes.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Efflorescence has been redesigned. It creates a healing zone at the feet of a Swiftmend target, but this healing zone now restores health equal to 4/8/12% of the amount healed by Swiftmend to the three most injured targets within 8 yards, every 1 second for 7 seconds. This periodic effect now also benefits from spell haste, but the individual ticks cannot be critical effects. In addition, Living Seed is no longer a prerequisite talent for Efflorescence.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Malfurion's Gift now reduces the cooldown of Tranquility by 2.5/5 minutes.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Nature's Swiftness now also increases the healing done by the affected nature spell by 50%.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Glyphs</b></span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Glyph of Rake is now Glyph of Pounce, which increases the range of Pounce by 3 yards.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Druid Bug Fixes</b></span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The troll druid models for Flight Form and Swift Flight Form has slimmed down to be more in scale with other druid flight forms.</span></div><div style="color: #008af8; font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Druids should no longer have UI issues after leaving a vehicle.</span></div><br />
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A lot of changes! I won't be going into detail on the Bear and Balance changes, though they've seen a few. Stampeding Roar has gotten a nice buff, with a longer duration and greater movement speed applied, however the range still hasn't been adjusted so that remains fairly small.<br />
<br />
Feral cats see some nice new changes - Swipe damage has been doubled, making it much better for AoE attacks again (as opposed to tab-Raking, which had been a much more effective means of AoE for smaller add packs). Berserk is no longer on the global cooldown which is a very nice change. The talent Feral Swiftness has also been altered to allow Dash and Stampeding Roar to remove movement impairing effects, restoring some of the mobility to Ferals which was lost when shapeshifting was altered to no longer free you.<br />
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An important change for all druids too is that Tranquility now has 100% pushback protection - therefore it is no longer needed to pair Barkskin with the channel if you don't want to or can't without risking losing Tranquility ticks.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i51.tinypic.com/2wdt15s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="186" src="http://i51.tinypic.com/2wdt15s.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image from Keeva's post on <a href="http://www.treebarkjacket.com/">TreeBarkJacket</a>: <a href="http://treebarkjacket.com/2011/02/25/efflorescence-graphic-changed/">Efflorescence Graphic Changed</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Resto sees several big changes in this patch. Efflorescence has a new spell effect (visible above) and has been redesigned - the healing is now 4/8/12% of the amount healed by Swiftmend to the three most injured targets within every second for 7 seconds, benefits from spell haste, but cannot crit.<br />
<br />
Nature's Swiftness is also getting a slight buff, it now increases the healing done by the affected Nature spell used by 50%. When combined with Healing Touch, then, you'll see it heal for an additional 50%. This will hopefully make the spell more attractive for those who haven't taken it as well as a nice buff for those of us already using it.<br />
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One of the big changes coming to Resto is the reduced cooldown for Tranquility. Speccing into Malfurion's Gift will reduce Tranquility's cooldown to 3 minutes, bringing it in line with other raid cooldowns such as Power Word: Barrier and Divine Guardian. This looks set to make Tranquility the Resto druid's 'raid cooldown'. While I personally think a damage mitigation cooldown (or component) would have been a bit better (and also bring us in line with the other healers), this will undoubtedly still be a strong cooldown for Resto druids. Tranquility can be excellent and lifesaving in a fight and being able to use it multiple times per fight will be extremely helpful for Resto druids. This also gives us a bit more freedom with when we decide to use our Tranquility - often in a fight there are times you want to save the Tranq for a specific time, which may discourage one from popping it earlier when the raid may need it. The reduced cooldown will give us some more flexibility now in when and how often we use it. Combining Tranq with other raid cooldowns (especially, say, a Power Word: Barrier glyphed for increased healing received while under it) will also be extremely powerful measures for raids.<br />
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<b>Resto Specs</b><br />
The biggest change for Resto in this patch is to our talent tree, as Living Seed is finally unlinked from Efflorescence. This will theoretically free up a few points for many druids and also allow druids to take a full 3 points in Efflorescence (especially with its new effect) without being required to spend another 3 points just to get it. I had hoped that Living Seed itself would see a redesign, especially as many druids look set to drop it, but we'll have to wait on that point for now.<br />
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The big question now remains: Where do I put those spare points?<br />
<br />
Regardless of where you decide to spend the points, two of those points will have to be within the first three tiers of the tree just to get you to the higher tiers - so you will be spending points in either Blessing of the Grove, Living Seed, or Perseverance. How you decide to spend them though will depend largely on what you're healing and your role. With this in mind, below are some sample specs you could try (for convenience sake, I have kept the Balance and Feral trees as 8/2, picking up mana saving talents):<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">All-around healing - 2 points in Blessing of the Grove, 1 point in Living Seed.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/resto_4-1_botgls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="261" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/resto_4-1_botgls.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="400" /></a></div><div>This is a pretty solid all around spec, picking up a point in Living Seed for its contribution to tank healing, 2 points in Blessing of the Grove for its contribution to raid healing. This spec also picks up Nature's Swiftness and, for those in need of a dispel, Nature's Cure.</div><div><br />
</div><br />
Tank Healing - Picking up 3 points in Living Seed.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/resto_4-1_livingseed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/resto_4-1_livingseed.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>This spec continues to pick up 3 points in Living Seed for its contribution on dedicated tank healing, as well as picking up Nature's Swiftness.<br />
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Spell Damage - Taking points in Perseverance.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/resto_4-1_botglspersev.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="258" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/resto_4-1_botglspersev.png" width="400" /></a></div>In this spec I've gone with the all-around spec, but moved the point in Nature's Cure over into Perseverance for the bit of reduced spell damage. A spec like this can be particularly nice for hard modes (particularly in 25 mans when dispels may be handled by other classes) to get that extra bit of damage reduction.<br />
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This last spec also starts to venture back into the other flexible points in the tree. Despite the buff to Nature's Swiftness, I imagine many may still shift that point elsewhere in the tree (particularly dedicated raid healers). Nature's Cure is also a potential candidate to move in situations (mostly 25 mans) where magic dispels are covered by other classes.<br />
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You can also pick up points in Nature's Bounty, such as in this spec:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/resto_4-1_botgnb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/resto_4-1_botgnb.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Here I've combined the Rejuv boost in Blessing of the Grove, Swift Rejuvenation for the reduced Rejuv GCD, Gift of the Earthmother to help frontload those Rejuvs, and Nature's Bounty to reduce the Nourish cast times for spot healing on all those targets which have been Rejuved.<br />
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These samples give you an idea of the bit of extra flexibility we now have in the tree! As ever, much of your choices will come down to how you heal and your role in raids and 5 mans. You can also adjust the Balance and Feral trees as desired, though again, I've gone with the 8/2/31 basis with mana saving talents for simplicity and for broad use.<br />
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Tangedyn over at <b><a href="http://www.theincbear.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The Inconspicuous Bear</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> made a very useful tool to help you decide where your talent points may be best spent based on each talents worth: <a href="http://theincbear.com/living-seed-replacement/"><b>Living Seed Replacement Talent</b></a>. Simply by going through your Recount/Skada/World of Logs/etc healing percentage breakdown and looking at your points spent and raid buffed spell crit, his tool can help you evaluate where your free points would be best placed.</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">As ever, don't be afraid to play around with the different specs and see which ends up working best for you! While a treant is forever, a talent tree is as flexible as you need it!</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Happy speccings!</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_112410_130237.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_112410_130237.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span></b>Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-38212395292151584602011-04-19T14:20:00.000-04:002011-04-19T14:23:15.583-04:00Quick update and Al'Akir 25 Heroic vid!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_032811_020901.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_032811_020901.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
I am still alive! It's been a while since I've posted so I thought I'd try to get a quick update up. The tricky thing I always find with brief updates is whether any of it is actually relevant (and, hence, readworthy)!<br />
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There hasn't been too much news of late, mostly just smaller content and item updates for the next patch. Patch 4.1 is still on the PTR, though it seems like we should be seeing that hit live servers within the next few weeks, possibly as soon as next week. I'll be updating the Resto and Feral guides for the upcoming changes when the patch goes live.<br />
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In more exciting news, we finished up the current content a couple of weeks ago, wrapping up with an Al'Akir 25 heroic kill after our Sinestra kill. Sinestra was quite a fun fight, particularly as for part of phase 3 you get a 100% haste buff and essentially infinite mana regen for a period of time, which makes for a lot of fun healing and DPSing! Though the tanks still get wrecked (along with the whole raid, really, as we also get increased damage taken that phase) so it's still edge-of-your-seat healing. It was nice to have a fight that wasn't really based around RNG, though. Al'Akir was a real pain for RNG, mainly as in Phase 1 you can easily have lightning, ice patches, a squall line, and wind burst all line up on one person - which for many is easily a death. If you can get out of phase 1 clean, you can pretty much get a kill (provided no one does anything too dumb), it's the same as normal mode from there out, just more health for Al'Akir and more damage taken.<br />
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I've been wanting to finish updating my raid guides (as many are still based off the beta previews) and maybe even get a Sinestra one up, so I'll be trying to make some time to do that. I think we'll be hitting up the PTR for the 4.2 Firelands raids when they're available though so hopefully I can have some mini-previews and screenshots of that when it's available.<br />
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As this post is pretty light, I'll leave you with a video made by our Bear tank Reesi (of <a href="http://www.theincbear.com/">The Inconspicious Bear</a>) of our Al'Akir 25 man heroic kill. You can see the amazingness that is Phase 1 and our lovely spot up in front (I got to stack with the tanks)!<br />
<br />
<object height="349" width="560"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/jwZdbFL_oKQ?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jwZdbFL_oKQ?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="349"></embed></object>Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-14700321284851378292011-03-22T18:05:00.008-04:002011-10-23T18:32:34.399-04:00Mana Management as a Resto Druid<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_030811_010354.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_030811_010354.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Battling Sinestra!</td></tr>
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</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">A quick update to start! Apologies for the lack of posts recently, I’ve been very busy still in game and in real life. We’ve been pushing progression hard these past few weeks but with some good results, we’ve gotten 25 Ascendant Council and Cho’gall down on heroic, as well as a quick Al’akir heroic kill on 10 man outside of raid hours to get a good look at the fight. We’re working full time on Sinestra now, which has been quite a lot of fun. The fight is pretty neat, and has a, er, fun version of Twilight Cutters - think Halion cutters that chase random raid members.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">There’s also been a lot of news updates about Patch 4.1 on the PTR, but with how quickly that’s changing and updating, I’m best off pointing towards <a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/">MMO-Champion</a> for the latest updates rather than trying to rehash all the news.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Instead I thought I’d make a post about the most important thing for healers in Cata - <b>mana management</b>!</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">It’s a bit of a fallacy that Resto druids have no mana issues - we have to manage our mana as much as any other healer, and you can easily run OoM if you’re not careful. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The most obvious tools in our mana-management arsenal are Innervate, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48544">Revitalize</a> (talent), our <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=57669">Replenishment</a>, and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=16864">Omen of Clarity</a> (which now only procs for healing spells when you spec into <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92364">Malfurion’s Gift</a>).</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Let’s start with <b>Innervate</b>.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=29166">Innervate</a>: Causes the target to regenerate mana equal to 20% of the casting Druid’s maximum mana pool over 10 seconds.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=29166">Innervate</a> is our key mana-restoring tool. It’s generally best to use your Innervate early and often so you can make as much use of it as possible during a fight. Generally the best time to first pop it in a fight is when you are roughly 20% down on mana, so that 20% back is theoretically topping your mana pool off again (or close to it). You don’t want to pop it too early, though, as you don’t want to waste it if you’re topped off and it’s still ticking. After that initial use, you can generally use it on cooldown through the rest of the fight (with the exception, perhaps, of certain fights or mechanics which result in you regenning enough that the timing of your later innervates might be wasted).</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">There are also several tricks you can do to maximize the mana you get out of your Innervates.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Timing Innervates with Procs</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
Timing your <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=29166">Innervate</a> with item or enchant Procs can provide substantial boosts to your Innervate, such as the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=52774">Power Torrent</a> proc (Increase Intellect by 500 for 12 seconds), the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=68711">Mandala of Stirring Patterns</a> proc (Healing spells have a chance to grant 1926 Intellect for 10 seconds), or the Engineer tinker use <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=82175">Synapse Springs</a> (Increase Intellect by 90), etc! Our Innervate is based off of our Maximum Mana Pool when used - so syncing it up with these procs or other abilities (such as a Priest’s <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=64901">Hymn of Hope</a>) which increase our mana pool will increase the size of the Innervate.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Addons such as <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/powerauras-classic.aspx">Power Auras Classic</a> can be extremely helpful in knowing when item procs are occurring to help you time your Innervates with them. Use your judgement though - all of these procs and uses have cooldowns, so there may be times where you simply have to use your Innervate before a proc simply because it cannot wait.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">A quick Power Aura code for the Power Torrent is:</span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span>Version:4.9; icon:Ability_Paladin_SacredCleansing; buffname:Power Torrent; texture:172; alpha:0.7; isResting:0; inVehicle:0; spec1:false; combat:true; size:0.49; y:-50; ismounted:0<br />
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<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Just click 'import' on the Power Aura edit page (/powa) and paste that code in. That code will make a lightning bolt appear in the centre of your screen when the proc is up, but you can easily change that to suit your liking!</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
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<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; line-height: 20.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><b>Trading Innervates (Update: Trading Innervates is no longer viable as of Patch 4.2)</b></span></span></div></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">If there are multiple Resto druids in your group you should see about trading Innervates. The <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=40908">Glyph of Innervate</a> is key here - the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=40908">Glyph</a> gives you 50% of your Innervate’s effect when you cast it on another target. If you and another Resto druid are both Glyphed, by trading Innervates you each gain their full Innervate plus half of your own. This can go a long way in maintaining both of your mana throughout a fight. Be sure to communicate when you’re trading, particularly that first one, so you can each keep Innervating each other on cooldown!</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">You can also set up quite lengthy circles of Innervates, particularly if you have several Boomkins in your group. Generally the boomkins won’t need their own Innervates, particularly in raids with Replenishment. This frees up the Boomkins to Innervate you and other healers. If the boomkins or another Resto druid innervates you, that also allows you to Innervate another healer, helping your fellow healers out over the course of the fight as well. To simplify things over a course of a fight, it may be helpful for Innervate targets to be assigned, ie Resto druid Innervates Pally, Boomkin 1 Innervates Resto Druid, Boomkin 2 Innervates Priest, etc. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">If you do not have another Resto druid or a Boomkin in your group, the Glyph of Innervate can still be useful for you, particularly in situations where an Innervate might be needed on someone else. Another healer might be struggling, or a healer or mana-using DPS may have been Battle Rezzed and so almost out of mana - having your Innervate glyphed gives you that bit of extra flexibility to Innervate the person who’s in greater need without completely sacrificing your mana return should you need it.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Revitalize and Replenishment</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48544">Revitalize</a> is an extremely important talent in the Resto tree. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48544">Revitalize</a>: When you periodically heal with your Lifebloom or Rejuvenation spell, you have a 20% chance to instantly regenerate 2% of your total mana. This effect cannot occur more than once every 12 seconds. In addition, you grant <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=57669">Replenishment</a> when you cast or refresh Lifebloom, which grants up to 10 Party or Raid members mana regeneration equal to 1% of their maximum mana per 10 seconds, lasts 15 seconds.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">We have our own little mana battery in this talent, restoring mana through Revitalize’s main effect and also in granting ourselves and our party and raid members <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=57669">Replenishment</a>.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">It is extremely important that you maintain good uptime on Lifebloom. While Rejuvenation can also proc Revitalize, Lifebloom is much less costly in terms of mana spent, grants Replenishment, and also plays a key role in our Omen of Clarity procs (which I’ll cover next).</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Omen of Clarity and Malfurion’s Gift</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Patch 4.0.6 saw a change to <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=16864">Omen of Clarity</a> and it will now only proc for healing spells if we spec into <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92364">Malfurion’s Gift</a>. It is now an essential talent in the Resto tree, do not forget to pick it up!</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92364">Malfurion’s Gift</a>: Whenever you heal with your Lifebloom spell, you have a 4% chance to cause <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=16864">Omen of Clarity</a>.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Again, it is extremely important to maintain Lifebloom on a target, ideally a 3-stack. Not only will it grant Revitalize and Replenishment, as detailed above, but it will grant the chance for Omen of Clarity to proc. Generally, the most likely target for a 3-stack of Lifebloom will be one of your tanks, most likely your main tank target if you are tank healing. Do not hesitate to maintain that stack on a tank even while primarily raid healing, though. If you are in a fight or situation where there is not a tank target for you to heal (healing Rohash/East platform in Conclave of Wind, for example), use your best judgement on who to heal, whether it be another raid member or yourself.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Clever use of <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=16864">Omen of Clarity</a> procs is essential in your mana management. Healing Touch, Regrowth, and Swiftmend all consume OoC. Generally you don’t want to Swiftmend for an OoC proc as it’s a reasonably cheap spell. If there’s little other damage going out and so no reason to use a HT or RG, you may want to pop a SM on a target who needs it just so the OoC proc isn’t wasted. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Healing Touch and Regrowth will be your most likely use OoC procs. If you are tank healing, Healing Touch will likely be your best use of your OoC as it hits hard enough for your tank heals. Use Regrowth on your best judgement. The best time for Regrowth OoC uses though is definitely in Tree of Life form - spreading Lifeblooms around the raid will be increasing your OoC proc chance, and ToL grants you instant Regrowths, so this will give you tons of instant free Regrowths to cast out on raid members.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Mana-Saving Talents</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">There are several talents we can spec into to help with overall mana cost. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=16847">Moonglow</a> is a very useful one which reduces the mana cost of our spells by 3/6/9%. This talent is in the Balance tree in the second tier. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=17059">Furor</a> in the first tier of the Feral tree is also a helpful talent which increases our maximum mana pool size by 5/10/15%. Our mana pool size affects our Innervate, Revitalize, and Replenishment, so this talent will help increase not only your mana pool size but those mana generating abilities as well.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Intellect</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">This is touched on above with Furor - our mana pool size affects our Innervate size and our Revitalize and Replenishment procs. This is part of why Intellect is such an excellent stat for Resto druids, particularly for regen.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> Although it may be tempting to gem for Spirit for the regen, favouring Intellect is the best course of action for Resto druids. Our in-combat regen tends to seem fairly low, relatively speaking - even on my main I’m at only about 2.6k in combat (self-buffed, mind), my other Resto druid who is in a mix of 333 and 346 gear is sitting at around 1.9k in combat self-buffed. It doesn’t seem like a massive amount, especially if you start comparing it to, say, a Holy priest, who may easily be hitting 3k+ regen in combat. The difference, particularly with Holy priests, is their talents boost their in-combat regen based on their Spirit specifically (<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=34859">Holy Concentration</a>), which is why you may often see them favouring Spirit quite heavily.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Our mana regen is based largely on our Innervate, our Revitalize, and Replenishment, and Intellect will increase the effect of all of those. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Healing and Planning</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">One of the biggest things in our mana management will of course be what heals we use and how we use them. Good use of our Omen of Clarity procs, covered above, is of course crucial to our healing and mana management. The use of the rest of our spells is also extremely important.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Lifebloom should always always always be up. If you don’t have a tank target to place it on, cast it on yourself or another raid member. It’s ok if it falls off - sometimes it can be quite useful to let it bloom, in fact - just be sure you put it back up right away. A 3-stack is best to keep up as much as possible. Many healing addons like Vuhdo and Healbot have HoT timers built-in which can help you keep track of your HoTs, though you can also find separate HoT timers or set up a Power Aura to let you know if your LB has fallen off.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">One of the biggest issues that Resto druids seem to have today is moving past the Rejuv and Wild growth spam that proliferated during Wrath of the Lich King due to the nearly unlimited mana reserves. It is no longer feasible to simply continually spam Rejuv/WG. Don’t get me wrong, these two are extremely important spells in our healing arsenal. We just don’t have the mana to be able to spam them unnecessarily. While Pre-HoTing is still useful in certain situations (eg, you know a large quantity of raid-wide damage is about to hit), you can’t continually cover the raid and you can’t do so too far in advance. Our Rejuvs are of a shorter duration than they were in Wrath so you would have to refresh them more frequently, resulting in even more mana spent (and wasted). If the raid is fully topped with no incoming damage you are simply wasting mana on overheals. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Similarly, many advise to use Wild Growth on cooldown - I prefer to advocate using WG on cooldown <i>as necessary</i>. The key is those last two words - as necessary. If the raid is taking constant AoE damage and 5+ raid members are always in need of heals, then it’s easier to use WG strictly on CD. If the raid is topped and there’s no incoming damage, spamming WG wastes not just mana but also the cooldown itself. As it’s a smart heal, it will hit those who are most injured, so it’s not really as feasible to pre-HoT with it (at least, not in 10- or 25-mans; in 5-man dungeons it will hit everyone in the party regardless). </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">When AoE damage is expected, WG makes an excellent reactionary tool to hit right as that AoE damage hits. Keep in mind how Wild Growth heals as well - ‘the amount healed is applied quickly at first, then slows down as it reaches its full duration’ - so those quicker initial heals are best when applied for actual damage, rather than always pre-applied so only those final slower ticks actually have healing to do.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Overall, healing is much more reactive than it was in Wrath, so we need to be smart about when it’s viable to pre-HoT and when it’s more advisable not to.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">As mentioned earlier, Regrowths are generally best saved for OoC procs, particularly in ToL form. The mana cost is very high for a spell which generally doesn’t hit too hard (especially if it doesn’t crit and you don’t have Nature’s Bounty), and you can easily spam yourself OoM if you’re only hitting Regrowths.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Don’t underestimate the value of Nourish. It’s a great spell for smaller damage, and if you’re, say, just keeping the tank topped off and refreshing his LB stack, Nourish is a great spell to do that. It’s so low cost that with LB up you can basically gain mana as you’re casting Nourish. Just be careful when tank healing that you don’t get caught flat-footed and miss a HT if you need that bigger heal!</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Knowing the Fight</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The best tool in your arsenal will always be knowledge. While there will be times when there’s unexpected damage (someone stands in something bad, RNG results in some bigger tank hits, etc), the majority of damage in fights is predictable and learnable. You know there’ll be bigger tank damage when a dragon does a breath, or heavy raid damage on something like Magmatron’s Incineration Security Measure. Learning fights and when to expect damage can help you plan which heals you need to use and when and can also help for planning your mana management throughout the fight. For example, if you know damage is light at the start of the fight, you can conserve a bit more so that you’re ready for a big burst of damage that may be coming in another minute or two. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Also, knowing about how long the fight will last and what’s to come can help you greatly in planning your mana usage. If you have a ton of mana left and a very short period left in the fight, you can easily dump that mana and heal very aggressively. Similarly, if there’s a period of very low or no damage coming up that will give you time to regen mana (such as Magmaw when he is impaled on the spike), you can afford to spend more mana before that when you know you’ll have the opportunity to regen.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Tree of Life as a mana cooldown</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">This is an interesting strategy which I use in certain fights. Tree of Life is very effective as a healing cooldown (and even as a DPS cooldown if needing to help put some DPS into a boss) but it can also function as a mana cooldown of sorts. This is most effective in a fight that has pretty heavy AoE damage coming out in a mana-intensive phase. It can be very helpful for mana because ToL allows you to spread your Lifeblooms all over the raid to help heal up that raidwide damage, and Lifebloom is a much cheaper heal than Rejuvenation. Not only that, but the increased OoC procs from all of the LBs allows you to throw out those free instant Regrowths as well.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">My best two examples of this are Valiona&Theralion and Nefarian phase 2, both fights when I use ToL for both the increased healing and for mana conservation. V&T can be a pretty mana intensive fight with all the raid damage that goes out, particularly on Heroic, so mana can easily get low when covering the raid. On V&T I tend to use my ToL form on a heavy damage phase when my Innervate is about halfway off cooldown, allowing me to recover some mana while throwing out those cheap LBs but still effectively healing the raid non-stop. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In Nefarian phase 2 on the platforms, ToL can again be extremely effective in keeping the members of your platform healed by spreading LB all over them. It’s also much easier in that phase on Nef to keep multiple stacks of LB on each targets since there are much fewer people on your platform (as opposed to the full raid).</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Pots!</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Never forget the value of a potion! A personal favourite of mine is the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=57099">Mysterious Potion</a>, as it restores health and mana and is fairly cheap and easy to make (it requires Deepstone Oil, made from Albino Cavefish). This can be a great potion to use to get you both mana and health back. It does have a range so you can get unlucky with a low effect, but still a nice pot to have a stack of nonetheless. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The most amazing potion though is definitely the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=57194">Potion of Concentration</a>. There’s a little bit of a drawback in that you have to sit and channel it, which puts you out of commission for 10 seconds (be sure to let the other healers know when you need to stop to use it!), but it restores a tremendous amount of mana. If you can use it, I definitely recommend it! Again, knowing the fight can be helpful here - knowing when there’ll be a period of low damage that will allow you to channel that potion. I also recommend popping Barkskin before potting to help mitigate any damage you might take.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Triage</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Triage is extremely important and there will come a time where you have to make split-second decisions about who you heal and with what. Again, knowing a fight may help you with this - is there a certain class or raid member who needs to stay alive to perform a crucial role? (Perhaps that rogue needs to stay alive to interrupt). Can you afford to lose one of the tanks or is it essential they’re both kept up for a required tank swap? Is the boss almost dead, should you be focussing on the DPS to help burn that last few percent of HP, or do your fellow healers need help so the entire group lasts longer? Don’t forget to heal yourself too!</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Generally these are the ‘oh shit!’ moments and decisions start happening on the fly. You won’t always make the right decisions, and they won’t always be easy - I’d certainly prefer no one die! But if it’s a situation between, say, a DPS dying and a tank, the DPS loss might lead to a wipe, but if the tank dies it’s generally almost guaranteed to lead to a wipe. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">While this is largely general healing advice, mana management does come into play as well as it will be affecting the choices you make on who you heal and which heals you use. It’s especially important towards the ends of fights when every healer is running low on mana. There are also times when people can (or, in the case of a fight like Chimaeron, must) sit at lower health - healthpools are very large and topping everyone’s health may not always be necessary. Again, knowing the fight can help here - if a big AoE damage spike is expected, your party members may need to be topped off, but if not, they may be just fine at lower HP for a bit!</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Don’t stand in the fire!</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Finally, spatial awareness, knowledge of fights, and personal cooldowns are important for everyone - that is to say, DPS and tanks as well as healers. If someone is standing in fire or poison or whatever else and just not moving out of it, it’s avoidable damage that you’re being forced to heal through (and burn through mana). </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Most classes now have personal damage reduction cooldowns (like Barkskin for all druids, Divine Protection for paladins, etc) they can use. It’s also important that tanks be using their damage mitigation cooldowns - you’d be amazed at just how many tanks don’t use any of their myriad of damage mitigation/reduction cooldowns and just expect healers to heal them through ridiculous damage.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I mention this last bit largely as a reminder that DPS and tanks have their part to play as well as the healers. Healer mana is limited, and any unnecessary damage taken by party and raid members (healers included too!) is mana wasted for the healers. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I also bring this up as I’ve heard many healers getting discouraged, particularly in PuGs (oh, the joys of the LFG tool!). While it can be great practice (nothing teaches you to deal with healing crises better than a PuG that’s just pulled an entire hallway in Stonecore, for example), it can also feel very discouraging. It’s always good to examine how you handled the situation and think ‘could I have done something differently to prevent that person from dying or that wipe from happening?’ There are times though when people were simply standing in fire / standing in a frontal cone / inexplicably jumped off a ledge / DPS taunted the boss / so forth! I have noticed an increase in pressure on healers, as when people die or there’s a wipe for many the first thought is ‘wtf the healers messed up!’ This isn’t always the case, though, so don’t forget to look to see whether someone was standing in something they shouldn’t have been!</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">As always, good luck and have fun!</span></div>Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-88671286013429152792011-03-04T15:40:00.003-05:002011-03-24T20:56:53.838-04:00Tips and Tricks for the First Tier of Cata Raiding<div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_022411_001228.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_022411_001228.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">There are a lot of useful little tips and tricks for the different bosses and encounters in the first set of Cataclysm raids, not all of which are too obvious, so I thought I'd share those that have helped me and my guildies out so far this tier! </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I'll start with some general tips before moving on to specific encounters.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=68713">Mirror of Broken Images</a></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> - This trinket (attained from Tol Barad vendors for 125 TB Commendations at Exalted) is an amazingly helpful trinket for any fight this tier, normal or heroic mode (though especially heroic). Although Mastery isn't always useful for every class and spec, it can be Reforged into a more useful stat. </span>While you may not use the trinket for every fight, it's great to have at the ready for when you need it, especially when working on a new and difficult encounter.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The biggest gain of this trinket is its /use - Increases Arcane, Fire, Frost, Nature, and Shadow resistances by 400 for 10 seconds, on a 1 minute cooldown. I highly recommend every raider pick one of these trinkets up to have ready in your bag, especially if you're looking to do heroic modes. The trinket can save your life in a fight and, for druids in particular, can be nice to alternate with <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=22812"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Barkskin</span></a> on fights with repeated large damage that occurs more frequently than every minute (e.g. Nefarian's Electrocute every 10%).</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=49633">Drums of Forgotten Kings</a></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> - <b>Note</b>:<b> </b>It appears this may have been hotfixed to no longer work (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/157148/patch-406-hotfixes-march-24">24 March Hotfixes</a>) <s>This is an interesting one. Using the Drums instead of </s><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=1126"><s>Mark of the Wild</s></a><s> or </s><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=20217"><s>Blessing of Kings</s></a><s> essentially gives you a trade-off of 1% less stats (4% rather than 5%) but will get you to a solid 247 Resists across the board - Arcane, Frost, Fire, Nature, and Shadow (including other relevant raid buffs ie Shadow Protection, Nature Resist, etc) as opposed to a normal 195 resist. </s></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><s>ETA:</s></b><s> Several have asked about this, I grabbed a couple of screenshots in our last raid to show this... click: </s><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_030311_221148.jpg"><s>Mark/Kings with 195 Resist</s></a><s> ; </s><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_030311_221853.jpg"><s>Drums of Kings with 247 Resist</s></a><s>. Both SSs also have Resist Aura (Pally), Shadow Protection (Priest), and Nature Resist (Shaman).</s></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Range Checker - Most Boss Mods will have a Range checker window which are immensely helpful for fights that require you to spread out or get away from other raid members.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/powerauras-classic.aspx">Power Auras Classic</a> - This is a great Addon (one I use in my normal UI setup, visible <a href="http://feraltree.blogspot.com/p/my-user-interface-addons.html"><b>here</b></a>) which allows you to put in custom Debuff alerts. This is great for setting up additional alerts for debuffs in boss fights to help warn you - they are completely customizable and can be made with various icons, colours, and even animations and sounds. I will list debuffs which are helpful to make Power Auras alerts for each boss.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/atramedes.aspx">Atramedes</a> - This is an addon which measures and displays in simple percentages the amount of Sound (Atramedes) or Corrupted Blood (Cho’gall) of everyone in your raid.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_121410_050454.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_121410_050454.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Bastion of Twilight</span></b></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Halfus</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Quick Drake Guide</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><u>Time Warden</u>: Grants the Proto-Behemoth the Fireball Barrage ability. Releasing slows the fireballs from the Proto-Behemoth.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><u>Stormrider</u>: Gives Halfus the ability to cast Shadow Nova. Releasing slows Halfus’ Shadow Nova cast time.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><u>Nether Scion</u>: Applies a +100% Attack Speed buff to Halfus. Releasing slows Halfus’ attack speed and reduces his damage done.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><u>Slate Dragon</u>: Gives Halfus Malevolent Strikes, a stacking healing debuff. Releasing occasionally paralyzes for 12 seconds. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><u>Whelps</u>: Gives the Proto-Behemoth the Scorching Breath ability. Releasing reduces the Proto-Behemoth’s damage done.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">As each drake dies, it causes Halfus to take 100% increased damage from all sources. Stacks.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">It is generally easier to never release the Slate Dragon, as the paralysis affects everyone and the healing debuff can be handled through simple tank taunt swaps.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=86171">Furious Roar</a> (cast by Halfus when he is sub-50% HP) is Physical damage, so <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=41450">Blessing of Protection</a> will protect the target from the damage and knockdown. Useful on a healer such as a druid or priest for Tranquility / Divine Hymn in this phase.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Valiona and Theralion</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=86369">Twilight Blast</a> - If you focus Theralion, you can easily see if he’s targeting you for a Twilight Blast while he is in the air, giving you more time to move out of the way. Spread out some while he’s in the air so the Blasts don’t hit multiple people.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Hunters can <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=19263">Deterrence</a> </span><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=86013">Twilight Meteorite</a>.</div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Power Auras Debuffs: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=86013">Twilight Meteorite</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=95640">Engulfing Magic</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92876">Blackout</a>.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Important debuffs for healer’s raid frames: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92876">Blackout</a>.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Ascendant Council</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In Phase 1, the person with the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=82665">Heart of Ice</a> debuff should be near the group attacking Ignacious and the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=82660">Burning Blood</a> debuff near the group attacking Feludius for a buff to damage done before the debuffs are dispelled.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In Phase 2, the AE ability order is always <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92546">Quake</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92469">Thundershock</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92546">Quake</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92469">Thundershock</a>, so you know to alternate the tornado’s Swirling Winds buff and the Grounded buff. You can survive Thundershock without being grounded if you have a cooldown available (Barkskin, an external like Guardian Spirit, etc) but you will not survive Quake without the Swirling Winds buff.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Power Auras Debuffs: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=83099">Lightning Rod</a>. Heroic mode: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92307">Frost Beacon</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=59795">Static Overload</a>.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Important debuffs for healer’s raid frames: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=84948">Gravity Crush</a> in phase 3.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Cho’gall</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Simple notes for healers: When Cho’gall summons the Fire Elemental, there will be damage focussed on the tanks. When Cho’gall summons the Shadow Lord, there will be more damage on the raid.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The Blood of the Old God (the small, oozey adds) can be stunned, slowed, and knocked back.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Good interrupts of the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=93365">Worshipping</a> channel is key in this fight. AE abilities like a Priest’s Psychic Scream, a Prot Warrior’s Shockwave, Destro Lock’s Shadowfury, etc can be extremely useful for quick interrupts while the raid is grouped up. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Some guildies provided an excellent macro for reliable individual stuns players can use to interrupt the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=93365">Worshipping</a> channel. This macro will clear your current target (eg Cho’gall), target the nearest enemy player (a Mind Controlled raid member), cast the interrupt, then return you to your previous target (eg Cho’gall).</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">#showtooltip</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">/cleartarget</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">/targetenemyplayer</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">/cast (Name of Interrupt)</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">/targetlasttarget</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">For a cat, you could put in /cast Skull Bash(Cat Form) into the /cast line of that macro.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Displaying enemy nameplates can also help you immediately identify when players are mind controlled.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_102010_033912.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_102010_033912.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Blackwing Descent</span></b></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Omnotron Defense System</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Magmatron’s ability <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79501">Acquiring Target</a> can be removed by a Paladin’s Divine Shield, Rogue’s Cloak of Shadows, and a Mage’s Iceblock.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Do not do anything to drop threat on Toxitron’s adds if you are Fixated - it will cause them to find a new target and could lead to them blowing up someone in melee range. The adds can be slowed.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Position the bosses so that they pass through Toxitron’s green <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=80157">Chemical Cloud</a> - the cloud causes everything to take additional damage, including the boss. Toxitron’s adds will also take additional damage if you are able to kite them through the cloud.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Stand in the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79624">Power Generator</a> pools left by Arcanotron - they will boost your damage and mana regen!</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Power Auras Debuffs: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79888">Lightning Conductor</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=80094">Fixate</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79501">Acquiring Target</a>. Heroic: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92048">Shadow Infusion</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92023">Encasing Shadows</a>.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Important debuffs for healer’s raid frames: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79501">Acquiring Target</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79888">Lightning Conductor</a>.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Magmaw</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Disable Projected Textures! Disabling Projected Textures removes the appearance of the bright green and white circles from the Druid and Priest AE healing spells, but it does not diminish the graphics for <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=78006">Pillar of Flame</a> and Meteor (Heroic). This makes it immensely easier to see the fire and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=78006">Pillar of Flame</a> target spots, especially while in melee.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">To disable, go to Options > Video > Projected Textures > Disabled.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I recommend turning it back on afterwards, as other fights have effects which need to be shown!</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Resto Druids: Plant your Wild Mushrooms by the spike - when Magmaw is impaled, Detonate them for some nice damage!</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Chimaeron</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Assigning or claiming spots before the start of the fight helps ensure everyone remains spread out when they need to be and that no one crashes into each other when spreading back out after Feud.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">For Boomkins: When afflicted by the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=88916">Caustic Slime</a> hit-reducing debuff, use Wild Mushrooms - they won’t miss.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">A DPS can technically tank the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=82881">Break</a> attacks while the Bile-o-Tron is online; as long as they're above 10k health they won't die. The Double-Attack tank (and Feud tanks on Heroic) must be proper Tanks. (See <a href="http://feraltree.blogspot.com/2010/12/raid-encounter-guides-chimaeron.html"><b>Chimaeron Raid Guide</b></a>).</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Heroic: In Phase 2, Nefarian begans casting <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=91307">Mocking Shadows</a>, dealing 2,000 shadow damage every second to all enemies. It is important to ensure the raid is fully topped off before Phase 2 begins in Heroic in order to help keep everyone alive to DPS the last 20%. Abilities like Power Word: Shield, Power Word: Barrier, and Aura Mastery can be helpful in mitigating or absorbing much of this damage.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Important debuffs for healer’s raid frames: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=89084">Low Health</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=82881">Break</a>.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Maloriak</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92980">Flash Freeze</a> ability in the blue phases causes initial damage and also damages the frozen player when the freeze is broken. Be careful not to DPS the tombs too quickly before the target is healed. Druids can pop Barkskin if hit by Flash Freeze for extra protection.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Abilities like Hunter traps, Frost DK’s Howling Blast (with <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=50041">Chilblains</a>), and Mage’s Ring of Frost can be helpful in slowing and stopping the adds managed by the kite tank.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Prime Subjects in the final phase fixate on a target and are immune to taunt. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=41450">Blessing of Protection</a> and other abilities are helpful on raid members targeted (especially healers or squishy DPS).</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Power Auras Debuffs: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92973">Consuming Flames</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=77760">Biting Chill</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92988">Dark Sludge</a> (Heroic).</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Important debuffs for healer’s raid frames: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92980">Flash Freeze</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92754">Engulfing Darkness</a> (Heroic).</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Atramedes</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Melee - Atramedes has a huge hitbox, stand as far out from him as you can to give yourself more time to avoid the Sonar Pulse discs.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In air phases, the second target Atramedes chases will be whomever hits a shield/gong in the air phase. Assigning a class or player with some sort of sprint-like ability to hit the shields can be helpful as they’ll have the speed boost to kite Atramedes.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Nefarian</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Disable ‘Water Collision’ effects - this effect is what causes your camera to dip below and above the surface of water/lava in the game. Turning it off will allow you to just see your character from above the surface of the lava, making it much easier to see where your pillar is and get on.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">To turn it off go to Options > Interface > Camera > Un-tick ‘Water Collision’.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Do not try to lifegrip (<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=73325">Leap of Faith</a>) players onto the platforms - it doesn’t work and may get them caught on the lip of the pillars.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Do not jump in and out of the lava when sitting in it (especially on Heroic mode when you need to go into it for Explosive Cinders) - it will stack the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=94075">Magma</a> debuff faster. If you need to leave the platform, simply strafe off and strafe back, saving the only jump used for getting back onto the platform.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Note:</b> As of the <a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2212-Build-13750-Strings-and-Weekly-Daily-Quest-Reset-March-16-Hotfixes-Blue-Posts">16 March Hotfixes</a>, toggling run/walk no longer works to slow down your movement speed when Mind Controlled (Dominion). To slow players in order to give them more time to stack up the power buff, try dropping slowing abilities such as Frost Traps and Earthbind Totems. <s>For heroic mode in Phase 1 and Phase 3, have your Toggle Walk/Run keybound and toggle the walk on for the Mind Controls (Dominion). If you are mind controlled, this slows your movement towards the portals, giving you more time to stack up the power buff before you need to release yourself from the mind control.</s> </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">If you are Mind Controlled, you will get a new bar - press 1 to release yourself from the MC, press 2 to build stacks of the Siphon Power buff.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The adds in Phase 2 which need to be interrupted are called <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=41948">Chromatic Prototype</a>. These adds do not melee and do not require a tank, they just need to be interrupted while killed. On Heroic, these adds need to die at about the same time, as Nef will begin to land as soon as the first one dies.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Important debuffs for healer’s raid frames: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=94075">Magma</a> (lava), Heroic Mode: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79339">Explosive Cinders</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79318">Dominion</a>.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Power Auras Debuffs: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=79339">Explosive Cinders</a>.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_121010_042424.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_121010_042424.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Throne of the Four Winds</span></b></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Conclave of Wind</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">If you ever have to go to the East Platform with Rohash, I highly suggest setting him as your focus in order to see if and when he is casting <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=86193">Wind Blast</a> (cutters). </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Also for East Platform, in preparation for cutters it is best to hover carefully in melee range (avoiding tornadoes) before each <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=86193">Wind Blast</a>. This will position you best for moving aside from the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=86193">Wind Blast</a>. If you are too far at range, you may be unable to move out of the way in time. Zooming your camera out is also helpful as it will give you a full view of Rohash and help you see which way he is facing. If you are still having trouble seeing where he is facing (especially if you are in melee range), watch people’s pets - pets will always position themselves behind their target. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=86193">Wind Blast</a> always rotates in the same direction (clockwise). </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">If you are on the North Platform (Nezir/frost), try to avoid standing in the centre of the platform. The raid needs to stack up there to soak the damage during the Specials, and you don’t want a Frost Patch laid down in the centre just before a Special occurs.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Al’akir</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=93283">Squall Lines</a> (tornadoes) have a graphic when they begin to spawn, they start as gold and white swirls which pulse a couple of times before the actual tornadoes form. This allows you to see where they’re spawning and can also help you spot where the gap will be.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">People can be lifegripped (<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=73325">Leap of Faith</a>) out of the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=93283">Squall Lines</a>.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Be sure to have your Sit ability keybound - Phase 3 has everyone ‘swimming’ in the air and you will need to move up and down - using the ‘Sit’ / down binding makes it very easy to move straight down.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Power Auras Debuffs: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=89667">Lightning Rod</a>.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Hope some of these tips are helpful! Be sure to leave a comment with any additional tips, tricks, or ideas you've found helpful in this tier.</div>Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-61905949559168527702011-03-04T12:39:00.000-05:002011-03-05T13:28:35.931-05:00Balancing Healer Raid CDs in Patch 4.1<div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So far on the Patch 4.1 PTR we've seen adjustments on healer cooldowns, most notably a reduction in PW:B (30% to 25%) and a 3 min cooldown and the new Shaman Spirit Link Totem. After much discussion on the Resto Druid and Shaman imbalance due to the Priest and Paladin raid cooldowns, I was excited when it was announced that these issues were being looked into for patch 4.1.</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">PTR Resto druids have seen Tranquility drop to a 3 min cooldown. While this is a nice ability for Resto druids, myself and others in the druid community are concerned that this will be the Resto druid 'raid cooldown'. Once again, Tranquility can be provided by any druid. Perhaps not quite as strong and now on a longer cooldown than a Resto druid, but a boomkin Tranq is still solid and a feral tranq, even if not too powerful, can buy healers precious seconds to recover. A shorter Tranq cooldown in no way makes Resto druids unique and does not increase their desirability in a raid comp as a healer.</span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The biggest concern with a 3min Tranquility is it’s another healing rather than damage mitigation/reduction ability, which has been the primary reason for stacking priests and pallies currently (PW:B and AM). Before the 4.0.6 buffs to Disc (when Disc was still behind in throughput) I was brought into a Heroic 25m on my priest alt literally just to provide a PW:B, despite the toon having significantly less gear and less healing ability, and not to mention less practice than my Druid main. With Shammies now getting a damage reduction-type cooldown, Druids are looking set to truly be out in the cold. </span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">As Keeva of TreeBarkJacket eloquently said in her recent post on </span><a href="http://treebarkjacket.com/2011/03/02/patch-4-1-and-resto-druid-desirability/"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">4.1 and Resto Druid desirability</span></b></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, 'Healing after spikes is very important, but reducing the impact is better and more attractive to raid leaders. Preventing damage is better than recovering from it; a healer combo that can reduce damage that the raid takes is simply more desirable than a healer combo that revolves around recovery only.'</span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; line-height: 19.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; line-height: 19.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I can already see Resto Druids being dropped again without having an equivalent damage mitigation cooldown of some sort, especially as paladins, priests, and now shaman all have raid damage mitigation abilities (and shaman even more so as they can also provide mana tide).</span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; line-height: 19.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; line-height: 19.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I realise there's a desire to avoid homogenization, but there needs to be balance among the healing classes. Unfortunately now that these abilities are in the game, Resto Druids are at a large disadvantage to the other three healing classes without an equivalent in a damage reduction ability.</span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; line-height: 19.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; line-height: 19.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">If I may play devil's advocate - Perhaps a solution for balance may lie in simply removing abilities like PW:B, AM, etc, if not nerfing them. Raid abilities like these are extremely powerful tools, but they are quite literally game changers. Some current raid encounters, especially on heroic, are near impossible to realistically attempt without a PW:B available. </span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; line-height: 19.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; line-height: 19.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">With such powerful abilities available, encounters will inevitably need to be designed around the abilities being available in order to continue to challenge raids. There will need to be a point in a fight where there's some big AE damage that hits the entire raid, and so requires one of these big cooldowns to handle it. Consequently, any class which cannot provide that ability will be dropped in favour of stacking classes which can handle it, further defeating the ‘bring the player, not the class’ ethos which is trying to be developed. </span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; line-height: 19.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; line-height: 19.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It is also arguably simpler to only need to retune damage output in encounters to adjust for these changes, rather than having to design encounters around these cooldowns being available.</span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; line-height: 19.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; line-height: 19.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I realise it's early still in the PTR, so I'm hoping that a 3 min Tranq isn't the Resto cooldown.</span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; line-height: 19.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; line-height: 19.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">On a related note, I know many have suggested making Barkskin castable on others as a Resto Druid PainSupp-esque cooldown, however, if such an ability would force the Druid to sacrifice their own Barkskin, I would highly discourage such an idea. Barkskin is an invaluable personal survivability tool for all druids, and Restos should not be forced to sacrifice their own survivability as the only way to get any sort of single-target cooldown. </span></span></div><div style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">ETA: Beru of Falling Leaves and Wings has an interesting post on this as well: </span><b><a href="http://fallingleavesandwings.wordpress.com/2011/03/04/im-growing-nervous-about-tranquilty/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I'm Growing Nervous About Tranquility</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">.</span></span></b></div>Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-38151332119187672062011-02-25T21:30:00.001-05:002011-02-25T21:34:07.791-05:00Patch 4.1 on the PTR and some Kitty updates!First off, I would be remiss if I didn't mention Patch 4.1 now being available on the PTR! You can see lots of updates on it at <a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/">MMO-Champion</a>, as well as the official Blue Post <b><a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2356431">here</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">. Lots of exciting stuff to come, including new heroic 5-man dungeons (a revamped Zul Gurub and Zul Aman) and possibly either some new raids (Firelands?) or at least a set-up for the new raids. So far the only big druid mention has been a short mention that the 'spell effect for Efflorescence has been changed'. It still seems to be a little unclear just what the change is - so far, reports are showing that it is primarily a graphics change, and we are now creating a green flowery rune rather than a bright green circle (which obscured many dangerous ground effects). Here's a little screenshot of it, courtesy of Keeva's TreeBarkJacket (<a href="http://treebarkjacket.com/2011/02/25/efflorescence-graphic-changed/"><b>Efflorescence Graphic Changed</b></a>), who in turn found it on the Druid Forums I believe:</span></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i51.tinypic.com/2wdt15s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="186" src="http://i51.tinypic.com/2wdt15s.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Actually looks pretty nice! Hopefully this will be visible enough that people will still be able to see it to run into, but shouldn't obscure any dangerous AE graphics in the process. Be sure to update your fellow raid and party members to its new look!</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">There has also been some discussion on Elitist Jerks over whether the heal itself has been revamped slightly to make it a smarter heal, but there's not much information yet, and it's all subject to a lot of change between now and when this patch goes live. There's some interesting discussion though, so to check it out go here: <a href="http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t110354-%5Bresto%5D_cataclysm_release_updated_4_0_6_a/p35/"><b>New Efflo Discussion</b></a>.</span></b><br />
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</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">In some other news, I've made some minor updates to the Feral guide to reflect some of the 4.0.6 changes. I'd in particular like to note Tangedyn taking over the guide on the WoW Druid Forums (Yawning apparently has stopped playing) - you can find his guide <a href="http://us.battle.net:80/wow/en/forum/topic/2089200852"><b>here</b></a>. I've also updated the link within my guide.</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Tangedyn also had an excellent post on <a href="http://www.theincbear.com/">The Inconspicuous Bear</a> with good explanation of some of the feral cat changes with 4.0.6: <a href="http://theincbear.com/adapting-your-cat-for-4-0-6/"><b>Adapting your Cat for 4.0.6</b></a>. </span></b><br />
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</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">There are four primary changes which he discusses:</span></b><br />
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</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">1. Ferocious Bite is no longer high on our rotation priority list when the boss is above 25% HP. With the buffs to Shred in the patch, it's overall a higher DPS gain to continue shredding (even at 5 CP) rather than trying to work in Ferocious Bites, as this poses no risk of Savage Roar or Rip falling off. When the boss is below 25% HP, though, you should absolutely be using Ferocious Bite, as it will refresh your Rip with the talent <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=80319">Blood in the Water</a>. This talent was also adjusted slightly in the patch so that FB will now instantly refresh Rip instead of refreshing after a slight delay (which it used to do), which sometimes resulted in Rip falling off.</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">2. With the above changes in mind, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=45601">Glyph of Berserk</a> is now our best glyph for the third glyph spot (over Savage Roar / Tiger's Fury), as the greater time in Berserk gives us more time to Shred. Glyphs of Rip and Shred should absolutely still be your other two glyphs.</span></b><br />
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</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">3. Again taking into account the changes to Shred (and to Mangle) which increased our weapon damage contribution, and also the changes to the trinket <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=59520">Unheeded Warning</a> which now increases your weapon damage, this trinket is now our BiS trinket by far.</span></b><br />
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</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">4. A final point is the value of Haste for cats has increased some following the patch, putting it about equal with Crit, and both being a bit behind Mastery.</span></b><br />
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</span></b><br />
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</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">And finally, in some exciting news on the raiding front, we successfully took down Nefarian on Heroic mode this week!</span></b><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_022411_001600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_022411_001600.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Derwent, Blackwing's Bane!</td></tr>
</tbody></table><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">This now takes us to 9/13 Heroic, with only Ascendant Council, Chogall, Sinestra, and Al'akir left! We've started work on Chogall now, with the hope that we will be able to take on Sinestra right after (bit unsure whether we need to kill AC before we can face Sinestra or not). Al'akir should fall not long after!</span></b><br />
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</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Also, Potion of Illusion + Sandstone Drake is just awesome:</span></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_022411_004105.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_022411_004105.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span></b>Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-67412068405643363492011-02-19T15:15:00.001-05:002011-02-19T15:16:00.606-05:004.0.6 Thoughts and Healer Cooldown Issues AddressedThe patch has been out for almost two weeks now, which seemed to be a decent amount of time to get a feel of all the new changes and get some raids in with them. We've also made it past the first major wave of hotfixes and the second minor patch (4.0.6a), though for the most part we weren't too affected (well, trees and cats, apart from some fixes; moonkins had several adjustments for damage and for some bugs I think).<br />
<br />
There was also some very interesting news for druids in a recent blue post on <a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/158904/incoming-healer-changes"><b>Incoming Healer Changes</b></a>:<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">We agree with the sentiment among some players that</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">Restoration druids</span></span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">and</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">Restoration shaman</span></span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">are lacking in the healing cooldown department. The shaman buff and</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">Power Word: Shield</span></span></em></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">adjustment above should bring all healers reasonably close in terms of throughput. The decision on who to bring then might end up being dictated by the strong cooldowns offered by paladins or priests. This isn’t the kind of thing we can address via a hotfix, but it is something we are looking at for the next major content patch.</span></span></span><br />
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They are listening to us! Much of the forums are now abuzz with ideas for what a cooldown we could have would be. I think most people (including myself in the past) tend to jump to the idea of 'casting barkskin on someone else' largely because it feels like the easiest solution, which I think gets suggested in the hopes that because it's arguably simple and not requiring a brand new idea, it might be implemented. As many have also said, though, it would be extremely disappointing if we couldn't use Barkskin ourselves (definitely a crucial survivability cooldown for ourselves), so I would NOT want to sacrifice that ability.<br />
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Really, the only cooldown that will really measure up to the ones offered by Paladins and Priests would be some sort of Raid Wall - i.e. something like Aura Mastery or Power Word: Barrier, as those two cooldowns are the primary reasons for stacking paladins and priests at the moment.<br />
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I excitedly posted the blue post up on my guild's forums and one of our healers had an interesting thought, though: He felt that it would actually be better to simply nerf the Paladin and Priest cooldowns (AM/PW:B) rather than give druids and shamans new ones. His thoughts were that encounters would eventually have to be designed around having these cooldowns, and could lead to more issues of stacking classes / sitting classes on progression encounters due to issues like, 'this big AE is nature damage, Aura Mastery won't help, sit the pallies,' or 'you can't stack people up for PW:B, forget the priests', etc like that, and that there would likely be similar mechanics issues with any new druid or shaman cooldowns. An interesting perspective, certainly, and one that's certainly not off the table - the blue post did NOT say they were giving us a cooldown, it said they would be looking to address the issue. So keep any hopes within reason!<br />
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Largely I think it comes down to keeping some sort of balance, whether that be giving shamans and druids some useful raidwide cooldown or perhaps simply eliminating or nerfing existing cooldowns. As ever, balance is extremely difficult to achieve, especially while trying to keep unique flavours to each class. Time for some brainstorming of druid cooldown ideas! A raidwide cooldown is definitely the way to go in my opinion if they give us something - again, that's largely the reason for stacking pallies and priests at the moment.<br />
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I quite like my idea of a druid raidwall from my <b><a href="http://feraltree.blogspot.com/2011/01/current-and-future-state-of-druid-pve.html">Healing post</a> </b>of 'Nature's Guardian...the druid calls upon the forces of nature to surround his allies with roots and leaves, reducing their damage taken by x% for y seconds'. Pretty simple, but would be a great cooldown I think. The language is really just for druid flavour hehe.<br />
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Thoughts for our actual 4.0.6 changes are primarily Resto-focussed as I've had the most experience gauging the changes for Resto in raids these past two weeks.<br />
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Healing output has definitely improved with the buffs, particularly our raid heals. The Wild Growth changes (30% healing buff plus a shorter cooldown) were very helpful. I'm a little wary of any reactions to data leading to a new nerf on WG - the buffs will of course lead to an increase in use of WG, and it and Rejuv will still be a substantial portion of healing done in the very least due to the nature of the heal (multiple ticks on multiple targets), but other spells are most definitely still being used. Combined with the new Rejuv mana cost (20%), both Rejuv and WG feel like they're in a good place - if you try to spam it you'll run yourself OoM, but if you use them well they are very effective, which is a pretty decent balance.<br />
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If you aren't saving your ToL cooldown for a specific time in the fight (i.e. specials on Conclave), it can be good to time the cooldown for times of AE damage in conjunction with a mana management strategy. Spreading Lifebloom over the raid in ToL can be incredibly mana efficient for getting additional HoTs around the raid as it's one of our cheapest spells. I've begun doing this in fights like Valiona and Theralion heroic, where damage around the entire raid can be pretty constant, so alternating between spreading LB around the raid in ToL and spreading Rejuvs outside of ToL (both instances using WG as well) helps work into my mana management over the course of the fight.<br />
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The patch also saw a buff to our healing mastery, which should be helped additionally by mastery coming into play more due to the shorter WG cooldown and reduced Rejuv cost. There's a nice addon on WoWInterface.com called <b><a href="http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info19274-DruidMastery.html">Druid Mastery</a> </b>which tracks how much of your heals are affected by your mastery. I haven't tried it yet as I hadn't gotten around to installing it, but I've heard good things and it should be a good help to see just how much of your healing is benefiting from your mastery.<br />
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Regrowth had some decent buffs in benefitting from Empowered Touch this patch. I've found myself using Regrowth a bit more than I used to, the 10% boost to its healing from ET and it refreshing LB stacks was definitely a nice improvement. I haven't really bothered with the new Nature's Bounty though, I've only placed one point in it. In 25 mans at least, particularly when focussing on the raid, I'm simply not spot-healing with Nourish enough to really need the reduced cast time. I do think it may find more success in 5 and 10 mans where it may be more feasible to actually use Nourish frequently on raid/party members.<br />
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Overall, though, the patch was pretty positive for Resto, we're definitely on the right track. There are still some issues, particularly with talent bloat and the lack of a cooldown, but the cooldown issues are at least on the table to be addressed, and hopefully some talent adjustments may be on the horizon too.Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-54995634498889472552011-02-07T13:55:00.002-05:002011-02-07T21:28:11.280-05:00Resto Druid Guide updated for Patch 4.0.6!I'm back! If you didn't notice I was away, well, that's a bit awkward for me, but I have been moving this past week so have been very busy packing and travelling. On the plus side, downtime loitering about in airports gave me time to go through a much needed update to my Resto guide!<br />
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Along with some of the minor updates for Patch 4.0.6, I completely overhauled the Specs section and updated information in the healing and stat priority section. I've got a new Base Spec suggestion up which should be useful for all healing, from 5 man dungeons on up into 25 man raids and progression content, along with additional information on options for flexible talent points to change that base spec around and information on DPS and Utility talents as well. I'll also be fine tuning some of the updates and fixing some additional things once the Patch goes live and I can test out some more of the talents / abilities and also confirm any final changes or hotfixes that didn't show up on the list.<br />
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You can see the updated guide at its usual home here: <a href="http://feraltree.blogspot.com/p/cataclysm-restoration-druid-guide.html"><b>Cataclysm Restoration Druid Guide</b></a>.<br />
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Hopefully everyone is excited for the patch, which looks like it will be landing this week! Resto druids are seeing some nice buffs, most notably a 30% increase to our Wild Growth healing as well as a reduction in its cooldown (8 seconds, down from 10). A small nerf to our Tree of Life duration, but it's not too big so I don't think it will be an issue. We're also seeing some buffs to Regrowth in that it will now benefit from Empowered Touch, so it should gain a +10% bonus and it will refresh Lifebloom stacks on a target.<br />
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Ferals are seeing a mix of changes, we've got a 10% damage reduction to our Rake and Rip, but an increase in the weapon damage contribution to our Shred and Mangle (cat) up to 450%. There are also a fair few PvP related changes with Shapeshifting and breaking roots (you can now only break roots with Shapeshifting if you select Restoration as your talent specialisation and also I think Moonkin form will break it), though normal shapeshifting will still clear you of movement impairing effects (slows etc).<br />
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For a full list of all the Patch 4.0.6 changes see the MMO-Champ post here: <a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2172-Patch-4.0.6-on-live-realms-this-week"><b>Patch 4.0.6 on Live Realms This Week</b></a>.<br />
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I'll leave this update at that to give you time to peruse the Patch notes and the Resto guide updates!Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-83644466641746463252011-01-31T07:55:00.004-05:002011-01-31T08:35:15.799-05:00Conclave of Wind Heroic Video!A quick post today, with my Heroic Conclave of Wind video!<br />
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">A quick note before the video, I'd really appreciate additional reads on my post on druid healing, particularly the post on the WoW Healing Forums - I'm really hoping some devs as well as players will give it a read, as I do feel the issues discussed are really important for druids (and also for Shamans, who are in a similar situation at the moment). Any constructive comments on the post are appreciated, whether joining in the discussion if you agree or disagree, have a good idea of your own, or just chiming in to say if you like the ideas or not :D It will bump the post as well in a positive way and might even get some good ideas brewing!</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">You can find the post here: <b><a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1965622980">The Current and Future State of Druid PVE Healing</a>.</b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div>Back to the video! I recorded our Heroic Conclave of Wind kill last night and finally got to make the video for it - I've been wanting to do this for a couple of weeks now as I had a specific set of music I really wanted to use in the video. Very different music than my other videos so far, and fits very well I think! I also managed to get this one uploaded at 1080 HD, continuing to work to improve my vid quality (though think I may hit a point where maximum quality videos may actually require a better computer).<br />
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Anyhow, without further ado, Conclave of Wind Heroic! (Watch in HD!)<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7TrJlfZikRo" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="560"></iframe><br />
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For those interested, I actually run a different spec for this fight,<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0hbhZMZMfuId0rd0ho"> 8/2/31</a>, picking up 3/3 in <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=78736">Perseverance</a> for the 6% reduced spell damage. I also still max out <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=51181">Gift of the Earthmother</a> to help keep my Rejuvs frontloaded and as I tend to let my Lifeblooms bloom a fair bit more on this fight, since I'm mostly jumping around a lot healing many targets and myself as needed (rather than being on a set tank target the whole fight, as there's no tank on the East platform and I'm only briefly on the North platform). I drop <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=88423">Nature's Cure</a> (as no dispels are needed in this fight), <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=33886">Swift Rejuv</a> (simply as it's not a crucial point in here so I feel I can spare it), and only take 2 points in <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=81274">Efflorescence</a> to get the 3 for <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=78736">Perseverance</a>. That last point feels a bit difficult to drop, but, given how mobile people are on East, most will not be standing for long in Efflorescence, let alone stacked up in it, and the stacked healing for the North platform specials are boosted by many of the other healers being there with their AE heals plus Power Word: Barrier, glyphed for 10% extra healing while in the barrier as well as the damage reduction.<br />
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The video also shows nicely just how crazy that East platform with Rohash can get with Tornadoes (and how much they can affect visibility, seen towards the end of the video) and Wind Blast. Timing and awareness really has to be sharp on the East platform, and I always have an eye watching that Wind Blast timer, as well as keep Rohash focussed to see what he's casting.<br />
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I also save Tree of Life for the East specials for the instant Regrowths and multiple LB stacks during the special - I pop it when Rohash is at about 80 energy or so in order to maximize how much use I get out of ToL, as I always shift into cat form for the fall. On normal mode you may survive dropping while not in cat form, but it's an excellent habit to get into, as it is highly unlikely you'll survive full fall damage and are consequently targeted for a Slicing Gale attack (especially if your debuff stacks are high). If I can as well I'll use ToL as a DPS cooldown at the end (as I do at the end of the video).<br />
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Enjoy!Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-16125645096480649082011-01-29T20:18:00.011-05:002011-01-29T23:01:32.444-05:00The Current and Future State of Druid PVE Healing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I’ve been thinking about this topic for a while as I’ve been feeling through my healing since Cata Beta and on into Cata dungeons, raids, and now Heroic 25 man raids. Part of me wanted to wait for the upcoming patch, however, with changes already announced (and all pretty positive so far), I decided I could instead focus on some of the other areas.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In particular I’d like to touch upon:</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">- Some thoughts/suggestions on current and patch druid healing</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">- ’Why bring a Resto Druid to our progression raid?’ - what is needed to gain positive answers to this question.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">- A few suggestions for adjustments to the Resto tree, particularly to help alleviate talent bloat.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>ETA:</b> Also posted this on the WoW Healing Forums, <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1965622980"><b>Current and Future State of Druid PVE Healing</b></a>, join the discussion! :D </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Current and patch thoughts on druid healing:</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Overall, druids are doing reasonably well when looked at of their own accord (ie not comparing with other healers). Nearly all of our spells see good use, and clever healing with good use of our innervates and Omen of Clarity procs makes for good mana management. I feel able to meet the challenges of heroic raid content and below and, again through use of smart healing and mana decisions, I am not in fear of going OoM each fight or feeling unduly restricted by it.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The changes slated for 4.0.6 are positive steps in the right direction overall. The buffs to Wild Growth will hopefully bring our raid healing back up to par. I’m interested to see just how the reduced WG cd combined with reduced Rejuv cost and the Symbiosis buff plays out in progression content - theoretically it’s looking like a positive change, though as ever we’ll see how it plays out when it hits live servers.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Regrowth is still a bit of a problem child, even with the upcoming changes. Its inclusion in Empowered Touch is potentially a positive change, most useful I foresee when instant Regrowths are used in ToL so you don’t lose LB stacks when popping Regrowth on OoC procs, as well as for some quick heals on a tank without losing your LB stack. The changes to Nature’s Bounty are more interesting and potentially appealing for the hasted Nourish casts it provides for Raid and Tank healing. Just how many points are worth sacrificing for this talent remains to be seen. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The bigger issue lies with Regrowth itself. As our ‘flash’ spell - a quick, expensive heal - it doesn’t measure up to the corresponding flash spells of the other classes (quickly checking on my own Priest, Flash Heal ~14k, Shaman Healing Surge ~10k, Pally Flash of Light ~14k). The HoT component is of course part of that - our main hit healing for ~7k with an additional 2k over 6 seconds. The main issue is that in general when that quick heal is used, it is precisely because an <b>immediate</b> heal is needed - in the majority of situations where that’s needed, it’s an emergency where a lot of healing is needed immediately, hence why we would even want to risk that much of a mana expense to begin with. The HoT component is negligible and usually quickly overwritten in instances where several quick Regrowths are needed in succession on the same target.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I can understand the desire to keep Regrowth different from the other classes’ flash spells to keep the Druid flavour, but currently the only real distinguisher for Regrowth is a weak HoT tacked to the end of it. The simplest fix would be to just increase Regrowth’s initial heal, roughly 10-10.5k direct base heal at 85 would be reasonable, with the HoT component’s 2k over 6 sec settling Regrowth right amongst the other flash spells. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">An example of the shortcomings of Regrowth (apart from its lack of punch in emergency spot- or tank-healing) is Chimaeron - those ~5 second windows between Caustic Slime or Massacre hits are crucial for quick heals to get targets above 10k heath. The other three classes can achieve this with one of their flash heals without needing the heal to crit or for a HoT to tick. By contrast, a druid has to rely heavily on the initial Regrowth heal critting or hope there is time for those HoT ticks to carry that last bit of health before the next attack. While it may not be devastating and other heals can be utilized, or even assigning the druid to tank healing, you can see where the inequalities can be spotted (which can correspondingly be seen with other heals in comparison to the other classes).</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Why bring a resto druid to our raid?</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The biggest concern with current Druid healing is it’s very difficult to give a positive answer to this question, ‘Why bring a Resto Druid to our raid?’ This topic was discussed some by Xaar of Paragon in his excellent post on the EU Healing forums (<a href="http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1302895318">The State of 25-man Raid Healing</a>). Apart from the healing disparity issues discussed by Xaar in his post, some of which have already been addressed in the upcoming patch (namely WG buffs and the Mana Tide Totem changes), the biggest issue is that a Resto Druid brings nothing of real significance to the raid along with their healing. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The things a Resto Druid can bring to a raid are: </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">-Replenishment (easily covered by other classes, especially in 25 man settings) </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">-Battle Rez (provided by other druid specs) </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">-Innervate (provided by other druid specs, albeit obviously stronger from Balance than Feral)</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">-Tranquility (provided by other druid specs, again strongest with Balance over Feral, though also good with cats specced into Nurturing Instinct). </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The flexibility of the class is of course a key component and I by no means wish for any changes for the other specs - simply highlighting that although a druid is still very desirable in a raid, specifically as a healer it looks like a lackluster choice.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Guilds heavily in progression content have primarily been stacking Holy Paladins and Priests for their healing comps. Pallies and Priests have risen as a choice above druids for several reasons: For straight healing output, especially at higher gear levels, those two classes have been extremely strong (which will hopefully even out some among the four healing classes with the changes coming in 4.0.6). Holy priests have been performing better on raid heals and have a valuable cooldown in Guardian Spirit. Although Disc priests have been a bit sub-par currently, they are still extremely useful for Power Word: Barrier, Pain Suppression, and, in some specific fights (ie Halfus Heroic), do immense healing through Atonement specs.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Although the Druid tank-healing toolset was upgraded in 4.0 and has a good mechanic using LB+Empowered Touch et al, in terms of tools it falls behind Paladins as a strong choice for tank healers - a Paladin has many +healing cooldowns (Avenging Wrath, Guardian of Ancient Kings, Divine Favour), damage reduction cooldowns (Hand of Sacrifice, Aura Mastery), Beacon, and Lay on Hands. The druid can pop Tree of Life but has only this cooldown, whereas the Pally can chain cooldowns throughout an encounter if desired. As one of our healers described, <b>‘</b>druids seem like half-assd paladins’. We do have a bit of a haste cooldown/proc in Nature’s Grace, however, this talent has its own issues for Resto, discussed later in this post in the Talents section.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Although Shamans are having some similar difficulties to Druids in current content, these are sometimes overlooked in order to bring a Mana Tide Totem for the Pallies/Priests. I’ll leave thorough discussion of Shaman concerns to someone more involved with the class, though.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>So what could druids have to make them more competitive and useful for raids?</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">One solution would be to provide Resto Druids with either a damage mitigation cooldown or a raid cooldown. Arguably we have a raid cooldown with Tranquility but, as addressed earlier, this is easily provided by the other specs. Again, this is great for the flexibility of the class, but still not a reason to bring a specifically Resto druid to a raid. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The most obvious damage mitigation cooldown one could give to Resto Druids (and has been suggested by others I’m certain) is to give Restos the ability to cast Barkskin on other targets. Making this a deep Restoration talent would restrict it to healers only. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Another option is to bring back a form of the Tree of Life aura, granting a +x% increase to healing received to raid/party members within range. This could be a part of the ToL talent - speccing into ToL could provide both the ToL cooldown (unchanged 3 min cd) and provide a +healing received aura which would be active both in caster and ToL form. This would also realign Resto with Moonkin Aura and LotP.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">There are plenty of other potential options and I’m sure many have some creative ideas. A raid damage mitigation cooldown would be a massive ability though may require an additional/new talent/idea. Something perhaps in a druid theme could be an ability, say, ‘Nature’s Guardian’ in which ‘the druid calls upon the forces of nature to surround his allies with roots and leaves, reducing their damage taken by 20%’, etc. This could be a deep Restoration talent.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Other talent tree suggestions</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">There are a few talents I also think could use some adjustments. There does seem to be some bloat in the Restoration tree. The expressed desire by Blizzard to have us make some difficult choices in our talent trees is there, and some are fun and effective - we have to make conscientious decisions on, say, mana conservation talents in the other trees vs +healing talents in the Resto tree(ie, what to drop for points in Moonglow? in Furor? etc). </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">There is a fair bit of extra talents in the Restoration tree though where we’re simply having to decide what to straight sacrifice as there are simply not enough points, rather than making more ‘fun’ decisions. Currently Gift of the Earthmother and Nature’s Bounty seem to be the either/or for the chopping block in many talent trees, with NB being the one more frequently dropped it seems (hence the upcoming NB changes). We’re having to make choices like this, and though there’s certainly decision-making occurring (and even healstyle analysis occurring - ‘How do I, personally, use Rejuv and LB? Is Regrowth worth the points in NB?’), I think many would find these the less fun decisions, as opposed to ‘Can I pick up Fury of Stormrage and do some damage for this fight?’ Another talent ever-increasingly dropped is Nature’s Swiftness (a further knock to our tank-healing toolset) as many are finding it not worth the point. 10 man raiders could also argue for Nature’s Cure being a frustratingly necessary dropped point, as they may not have additional dispels in their raid comps to compensate (25man raiders generally will).</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">With this in mind I’ve been considering the Resto tree and have the following ideas for our talents:</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Living Seed/Efflorescence</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Many have suggested this already - these two talents should be unlinked. Efflorescence is a good talent but people are increasingly feeling the 3 required points in Living Seed are too heavy a cost for it. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Living Seed itself is lackluster. It accounts for extremely little of our healing done and is an extremely costly talent at 3 points. Although the concept is fitting for a druid (a heal blooming after a hit), it is also much less useful than damage reduction talents like a Priest’s Inspiration or Shaman’s Ancestral Healing. Certainly, the Living Seed is useless if the hit it was going to bloom on actually killed the target because none of the damage was mitigated. Adjusting this talent to a damage mitigation tool would be much more useful, particularly in the context of our tank healing tools. Perhaps it may be better to simply overhaul or scrap the entire talent, or drop it down to 1-2 points rather than 3. In the very least, though, it would be extremely helpful to unlink this talent from Efflorescence. Certainly I’ve found myself wanting to (and actually doing so) drop a point or two in Efflorescence for points in abilities like Perseverance for certain fights (ie Heroic Conclave).</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">There is likely concern that no one would take Living Seed if it were unlinked from Efflo, though this itself should really bring up red flags about the value of the talent. Another possible solution to revamping Living Seed would just be to do away with it as a separate talent and instead perhaps combine it with Efflorescence, so 3 points gets you both talents instead of spending 6 for them.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Malfurion’s Gift</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I mention MG in the context of the upcoming 4.0.6 changes to Omen of Clarity and MG. With Clearcasting procs from Omen of Clarity set to only proc on healing spells by speccing into MG, this talent essentially becomes mandatory for all Resto druids. I would be shocked if any Resto would choose not to spec it, and even more shocked if they felt they didn’t need to spec it. This then essentially takes all the choice out of this talent and it’s simply stealing talent points.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">A solution which could help reduce some of the talent tree bloat would be to simply remove MG as a talent and grant its ability (OoC for healing spells) as one of the Restoration specialization abilities. This would free up 2 talent points for some more customization in the rest of the tree. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Another solution would be to incorporate another ability into the talent, however that may simply bog down the tree even more than it already is.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Nature’s Grace</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Strictly speaking a Balance talent, though it has good uses for Restoration druids as well. I do think it could use some minor improvements for Resto use. It already had an update for Resto (adding in Regrowth to trigger the Haste proc in addition to MF/IS) which was very helpful, particularly in a PVE progression healing context in which the GCD and mana for a MF/IS can’t always be spared. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The biggest issue for Resto at the moment is the ICD on the Haste proc - the ability has a 1 minute cooldown which Balance druids can reset through Eclipse. Resto druids can’t reset the cooldown, which makes this a difficult talent to make full use of. Although it’s possible to time gaining the haste buff for certain events in an encounter, the nature of healing will often require the use of Regrowth in situations outside of when we might want the haste buff. Consequently we are locked out of gaining the haste buff again for another minute. This then restricts us to either limiting our Regrowth/IS/MF only to times when we want the buff (preventing us from using RG as needed), to using our RG as needed but locking us from the haste at key times, or to attempting to keep track of the ICD. Perhaps the latter is intended, but it feels restrictive, again in particular when compared with abilities like Tidal Waves, Serendipity, Borrowed Time, Infusion/Speed of Light, Judgements of the Pure. The changes to Nature’s Bounty may assist in providing druids with a comparable ability (depending on how the talent works practically on live and how many points can be worth spending in it), however I still feel the ICD for Nature’s Grace needs to be adjusted for Resto druids.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Overall</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">These are just some of my current thoughts on Druid healing and really only a small portion of the ideas and discussion circulating at the moment. Druids are certainly far from bad at the moment and can perform well in Heroic content. The spec and our ability strengths still need some adjusting, and the mass data from logs et al after patch 4.0.6 goes live will be the most useful in determining how successful the upcoming changes are in bringing our heals closer to par with Priests and Paladins. There are definitely movements in the right direction, but there is still a ways to go. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Crucially, I feel Resto druids could do with an ability to increase their value to bring to a raid. Certainly in the context of the expressed desire for raiders to bring ‘the player, not the class’, druids are harshly behind Priests and Paladins (and arguably behind Shamans as well w/o MTT to contribute) in terms of what they can offer apart from just being a healer. Even assuming equal gear, equal player skill, and (assuming relevant buffs/nerfs upcoming in 4.0.6 across the 4 healing classes) equal healing output, druids will rarely, if ever, be preferred due to lacking the cooldowns/abilities possessed by Paladins and Priests. While it’s good to keep the different classes unique to a degree to prevent any homogenization in healing styles and strategies, the classes should still have some equality in terms of each bringing effective healing and abilities which can contribute positively to the raid and encounter. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Assuming the status quo, there is also a potential argument for simply increasing the strength of all of the druid’s heals so that they are superior to the other classes’ heals. This could theoretically even out the desirability of bringing a druid, as although they lack raid cooldowns et al, the increase in healing would compensate. Personally, I feel the utility of some sort of additional cooldown would be a more valuable change, as I imagine simply increasing our healing strength would ultimately be a poor decision for class balance. If the heals were increased too much it could just as easily lead to stacking druids, as the healing would just be more valuable than any cooldowns provided by other classes. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Ultimately, the best aim is for a roughly equal balance so that a reasonable mix of all the classes are included, rather than stacking of a particular class. Of course, this is extremely difficult to do, but I hope that ideas like those above will help to lead things in that direction.</span></div>Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-22793560150573434752011-01-26T08:55:00.006-05:002011-02-09T17:21:00.258-05:00User Interface and Power Auras ExportsI've had a few questions about my UI and which addons I use, so I thought I'd make a post for easy reference. I grabbed a still from my <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHQVQQ8_jss">Maloriak</a> video and a couple of other screenshots to mark up so it was clear which addons are doing what. I've listed them all below including links to their page on <a href="http://wow.curse.com/">Curse.com</a>. (Permanent page set up on the right-hand side links <a href="http://feraltree.blogspot.com/p/my-user-interface-addons.html">here</a>.)<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/SS_addons_25012011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/SS_addons_25012011.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<b>Addons</b><br />
<br />
1. <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/vuhdo.aspx">Vuhdo</a> - Healing and Raid Frames<br />
2. <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/powerauras-classic.aspx">Power Auras Classic</a> - Customisable notifier (de/buffs, spell CDs, procs, etc)<br />
3. <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/ice-hud.aspx">IceHUD</a> - Customisable HUD<br />
4. <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/parrot.aspx">Parrot</a> - Scrolling Combat Text<br />
5. <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/deadly-boss-mods.aspx">Deadly Boss Mods</a> / <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/dbm-spelltimers.aspx">DBM Spell Timers</a> - Boss Encounters<br />
6. <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/omen-threat-meter.aspx">Omen</a> - Threat Meter<br />
7. <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/recount.aspx">Recount</a> - Damage Meter<br />
8. <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/sexymap.aspx">SexyMap</a> - Customisable MiniMap skins<br />
9. <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/quartz.aspx">Quartz</a> - Cast Bars<br />
10. <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/chocolatebar.aspx">Chocolate Bar Broker Display</a> - Bar for <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/categories/data-broker.aspx">Broker Plugins</a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/ss_addons_feral_25012011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/ss_addons_feral_25012011.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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11. <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/tip-tac.aspx">TipTac</a> / <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/tip-tac-talents.aspx">TipTac Talents</a> - Customisable ToolTips / Displays target's talents (0/0/0)<br />
12. (not visible) <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/ora3.aspx">oRA3</a> - Raid assist<br />
13. <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/tidy-plates.aspx">Tidy Plates</a> - Customisable Nameplates<br />
14. (not visible) <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/simple-raid-target-icons.aspx">Simple Raid Target Icons</a> - Quick customisable raid target marking<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: auto;">15. <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/rpb-20.aspx">RoguePowerBars</a> - Buff/Debuff tracker and timers</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/SS_addons_resto_25012011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/SS_addons_resto_25012011.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<b>Power Auras Import Codes</b><br />
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For those of you using <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/powerauras-classic.aspx">Power Auras Classic</a> who would like to use my setup, I'll include the Power Auras import codes below. To set these up, all you have to do is bring up the Power Auras editor in-game by typing /powa. You can then import this setup directly by clicking the Import button and pasting the code in.<br />
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<b>Resto Power Auras</b><br />
Wild Growth cooldown<br />
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<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Version:4.9; icon:Ability_Druid_Flourish; buffname:Wild Growth; x:-45; customname:48438; bufftype:15; alpha:1; isResting:0; inVehicle:0; spec1:false; customtex:true; combat:true; size:0.15; y:-160; texmode:2; ismounted:0</span></div><br />
Nature's Swiftness cooldown<br />
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<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Version:4.9; icon:Spell_Nature_RavenForm; buffname:Nature's Swiftness; x:45; customname:17116; bufftype:15; alpha:1; isResting:0; inVehicle:0; spec1:false; customtex:true; combat:true; size:0.15; y:-160; texmode:2; ismounted:0</span></div><br />
Omen of Clarity proc w/ Timer<br />
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<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Version:4.9; icon:Spell_Shadow_ManaBurn; buffname:Clearcasting; customname:16870; alpha:1; isResting:0; inVehicle:0; customtex:true; combat:true; size:0.15; y:-160; texmode:2; ismounted:0; timer.h:2; timer.Texture:WhiteRabbit; timer.enabled:true; timer.cents:false; timer.Relative:CENTER; timer.Transparent:true</span></div><br />
Tree of Life Timer - (Credit to Keeva at <a href="http://treebarkjacket.com/">TreeBarkJacket</a> for the base for this aura, from her <a href="http://treebarkjacket.com/2010/12/21/updated-power-auras-exports/">Power Aura Exports post</a>.)<br />
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<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Version:4.9; b:0.9765; icon:Ability_Druid_TreeofLife; buffname:Tree of Life; r:0.9922; customname:33891; alpha:0.2; isResting:0; inVehicle:0; exact:true; spec1:false; customtex:true; combat:true; size:0.15; y:-115; ismounted:0; anim2:1; finish:0; timer.h:2; timer.Texture:WhiteRabbit; timer.enabled:true; timer.cents:false; timer.Relative:CENTER</span></div><br />
Power Torrent proc<br />
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<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Version:4.9; icon:Ability_Paladin_SacredCleansing; buffname:Power Torrent; texture:172; alpha:0.7; isResting:0; inVehicle:0; spec1:false; combat:true; size:0.49; y:-50; ismounted:0</span></div><br />
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<b>Feral Power Auras</b><br />
Tiger's Fury cooldown<br />
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<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Version:4.9; icon:Ability_Mount_JungleTiger; buffname:Tiger's Fury; x:-45; customname:5217; bufftype:15; alpha:1; isResting:0; inVehicle:0; spec2:false; customtex:true; combat:true; size:0.15; y:-160; texmode:2; ismounted:0</span></div><br />
Berserk cooldown<br />
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<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Version:4.9; icon:Ability_Druid_Berserk; buffname:Berserk; x:45; customname:50334; bufftype:15; alpha:1; isResting:0; inVehicle:0; spec2:false; customtex:true; combat:true; size:0.15; y:-160; texmode:2; ismounted:0</span></div><br />
Predator's Swiftness proc<br />
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<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Version:4.5; b:0.0588; g:0.0235; icon:Ability_Hunter_Pet_Cat; buffname:Predator's Swiftness; alpha:1; isResting:0; sound:11; wowtex:true; combat:true; size:0.75</span></div><br />
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You will likely need to do at least some minor tweaking to these Power Auras even if you don't want to adjust the size/positioning/etc. The biggest thing to note is these Power Auras are customised to my spec - the Resto ones only trigger for my Resto spec, which is my second spec. If you bring up the edit option, you will see the following:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_012611_133327.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_012611_133327.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
This is the edit window for the Wild Growth cooldown. This one is set to trigger only when in combat. You can see at the bottom of the edit window that the box next to 'Spec 2' is ticked - this means this will only work in my secondary spec. If Resto is your main spec, simply tick Spec 1 instead of Spec 2 (or tick both if you have two Resto specs), and so on as needed for the other codes.<br />
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If you already have some Power Auras set up, it's a good idea to back up your current PowerAuras so that you don't lose any of your own settings. To do so, simply type /powa to bring up the PowA window and click 'Export Set'. Simply copy/paste the code into a text file and save it to your computer. Should you lose your Auras, you will be able to hit 'Import Set' and paste that saved text file in to get them all back.Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-71474713975150131152011-01-25T22:00:00.000-05:002011-01-25T22:09:12.599-05:00Slayer of Stupid, Incompetent, and Disappointing Minions!A quick update; we got Heroic Maloriak down last night, and I was actually recording for once so I have a video of our first kill!<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nHQVQQ8_jss" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="560"></iframe><br />
Video: Our Heroic Maloriak 25 man kill.<br />
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Despite taking ages to upload and being recorded in 1080 HD it for some reason is only showing up in 720 HD on youtube, so I'll have a poke at that later after raid time to figure out why that is. A bit annoyed at that and hoping it won't be too difficult to amend, as I've been trying to improve the picture and overall video qualities as I do each one. Added a little intro lead-in for the site, will be playing some more with those sorts of things as I go as well. Also, if anyone has recommendations for new music to check out, always interested to hear some new stuff! The videos so far have some similar soundtracks, though I do have some very different music in mind for an upcoming vid (ideally a Conclave vid if I can get one recorded).<br />
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The Heroic Maloriak fight is quite a good one, with the primary difference from normal mode being an additional phase in which Nefarian adds Dark Magic to Maloriak's cauldron. You can see in the video that this results in a lot of additional adds (the dark swills), dark patches on the ground which deal a lot of damage if you stand in it, and a debuff cast on the tank called '<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92754">Engulfing Darkness</a>'.<br />
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The <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92754">Engulfing Darkness</a> debuff is very important as it reduces all healing taken by 99%. You can see in the video I have Maloriak focussed to watch his cast bar and have the debuff icon appearing on my Vuhdo - it's a 3 second cast with an 8 second channel applied on the tank (and any who happen to get in front of him) which applies the debuff. It's very important that the tank is healed to full in those few seconds before the debuff is reapplied and any necessary cooldowns used by/on the tank as needed, as healing will be ineffective while the cast is channelled.<br />
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I'll be trying to get a full raid guide up for Maloriak soon to go with the video, including some more information on the heroic mode abilities. I've also had some questions about my UI so I'll see about doing an updated UI post as well.<br />
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One of the most fun things about the Maloriak hardmode is you receive the following awesome (yet sadly temporary) title:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_012511_041126.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_012511_041126.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
You also get a fun debuff:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_012511_041148.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="253" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_012511_041148.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Unfortunately, both disappear when you die (including if you die during the encounter itself), so more incentive to stay out of bad stuff and remain alive!<br />
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We all quickly lost our titles though as our raid leaders forgot to set the instance back to Normal mode. We were a few minutes into Nefarian when we suddenly realised 'hm... why are people getting mind controlled?.. OMG IT'S STILL ON HEROIC!!' One day no one will realise it when that happens and maybe we'll end up with an accidental heroic win.<br />
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More to come soon!Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993668487492357247.post-39654597738855775142011-01-24T07:47:00.003-05:002011-01-24T08:04:50.087-05:00Heroic Chimaeron Video + Raid Guide Update!I recorded a video of our Heroic Chimaeron 25 kill last night! Working on improving the videos as I go, I'd still like to up the sharpness some more, though you can still watch this and the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr5VNtWjzRM"><b>Omnotron</b></a> kill in HD. I had a comment on my Omnotron video to see my cursor during a fight so you can see a bit more what I'm doing, so I tried that out for this video. My primary focus on this fight is on tank healing.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/hISkZsAePPI" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="560"></iframe><br />
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I have also updated the Raid Encounter Guide for Chimaeron with information on the Heroic version of the fight, including the Heroic mode abilities and additional tanking and healing suggestions.<br />
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You can see the updated guide here: <a href="http://feraltree.blogspot.com/2010/12/raid-encounter-guides-chimaeron.html"><b>Raid Encounter Guide - Chimaeron</b></a>.<br />
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In other amusing news, there is no running from the trash in Blackwing Descent - they've learned to use the lifts!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_012411_055833.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/feraltreeblog/WoWScrnShot_012411_055833.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
This gives whole new meaning to deaths to the lift-boss! A guildie aptly described these drakes as like velociraptors, learning to use lifts, they'll be learning how to open doors next... Run while you still can!Feral Treehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00992474868193996580noreply@blogger.com0