Healing and Battling the Firelord, Heroic Ragnaros!

417 pulls later, the Firelord has been vanquished! Last Wednesday we finally killed Heroic Ragnaros! A big congratulations to all my fellow guildies in Drow, 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!

Reesi of The Inconspicuous Bear 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!

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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! 

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.

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 (8/2/31):

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.

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.

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!

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. 

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!

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. 

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.

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: Resto Class Feedback).

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!

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. 

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.

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. 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.

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. 

Happy raiding!

Raid Encounter Guides - Sinestra (Bastion of Twilight)

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.

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.

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.

Abilities

Mana Barrier - Envelops the caster in a powerful barrier that continually replenishes any lost health, at the expense of the caster’s mana.

Flame Breath - Deals 95000 to 105000 Fire damage to all enemies in front of the caster.

Twilight Blast - Blasts an enemy for 166250 to 183750 Shadow damage

Wrack - Deals increasing Shadow damage over one minute. When dispelled bounces to two nearby allies of the afflicted player.

Twilight Slicer - Beam of concentrated twilight energy, dealing 50,000 Shadow damage every 0.3 seconds to any enemy in contact with it.

Twilight Pulse - Deals 27000 to 33000 damage every 0.5 seconds to enemies within 10 yards.

Twilight Extinction - Deals 475000 to 525000 Shadow damage to all enemies within reach.

Whelps

Twilight Spit - Spits Twilight energy at an enemy, dealing 3800 to 4200 Shadow damage and increases Shadow damage taken by 10%. Stacks.

Twilight Essence - 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.

Spitecallers

Unleash Essence - Releases a torrent of twilight energy that afflicts all nearby enemies, dealing damage equal to 10% of their maximum health every second.

Indomitable - 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.

Twilight Drake

Twilight Breath - Deals Shadow damage in a frontal cone.

Calen

Fiery Barrier - Protects nearby allies from dark magic, reducing their Shadow damage taken by 99%.

Essence of the Red - 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.

Pyrrhic Focus - Evelops the caster in a fiery aura that continually restores mana at the expense of the caster’s health.

Strategy

Phase 1

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 Wrack.

Sinestra’s primary ability is Flame Breath, a raid-wide AoE attack which she casts every 20 seconds. 

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.

You will get at least one Wrack during this phase. Wrack 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 Wrack or something else), the Wrack will jump to two other friendly targets. Careful control of Wrack 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 Wrack is below.

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.

Raid damage is pretty light in Phase 1 until the first Flame Breath, 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.

Phase 2

Phase 2 begins when Sinestra reaches 30% health. She will cast Mana Barrier on herself, healing herself to full. She will begin to cast Twilight Extinction, 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 Fiery Barrier, and all raid members must ensure they are inside the barrier, as it will protect them from Twilight Extinction.

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 Twilight Essence 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.

There are several things to deal with once the Fiery Barrier drops.

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 Unleash Essence, 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.

Your range DPS (and possibly some melee) should head back to Sinestra and the two Pulsing Twilight Eggs 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 Twilight Carapace 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 Twilight Carapace from the eggs so that you can open full blast and already have DoTs ticking without losing DPS time on the eggs.

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.

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.

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 Pyrrhic Focus). Unless an Unleash Essence 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).

Phase 3 will begin when the two Eggs die.

Phase 3

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.

Phase 3 is the same as Phase 1 in terms of abilities - Sinestra will continue to cast Flame Breath, Wrack will be going out to the raid, Whelps will spawn, and there will be more Twilight Slicers to avoid.

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 Flame Breath or they will die.

To help with the increase in Sinestra’s health and damage, Calen casts Essence of the Red 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.

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 Twilight Spit in between waves. You may also wish to have your OT and MT swap partway through phase 3 for the stacks to fall again.

Wrack must also be kept under good control. As of 4.1, Wrack 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).

Wrack

It is crucial the Wrack debuff is appropriately handled throughout Phase 1 and Phase 3. It is generally best to assign one person to handle the Wrack 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.

Wrack - 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.

It’s best to keep Wrack on as few people as possible, so timing the dispels well is essential. You will need a way to see how long the Wrack 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 GridStatusSinestra will monitor it.

The first Wrack 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 Wracks and the Wrack 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.

It is extremely helpful to have one of your raid healers focus on healing targets with Wrack to ensure they are getting enough heals and that they are topped off before each Flame Breath.

As of 4.1, Wrack will avoid jumping onto tanks, which is incredibly helpful for managing Wrack. Should Wrack 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 Wrack on top of that.

Spitecallers

The Spitecallers in Phase 2 are tricky adds to deal with. It’s crucial their cast, Unleash Essence, 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 Indomitable - 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.

If the Spitecaller gains Indomitable, it will almost certainly get off a cast of Unleash Essence, 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).

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 Unleash Essence cast).

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.

Whelps

Whelps spawn every 50 seconds in Phase 1 and 3. Their main attack is Twilight Spit 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.

When the whelps first die, they create pools of Twilight Essence, 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.

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. 

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.

Twilight Orbs/Slicers

Welcome to Cutters 4.0! 

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 Twilight Slicer will connect between the two Orbs and the Orbs will chase their target. 

The two Orbs need to be kited away from the raid such that the Twilight Slicer 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. 

The Orbs themselves do Twilight Pulse, 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.

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).

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.

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.

Good Luck and Have Fun!

Tips and Tricks for the First Tier of Cata Raiding

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! 

I'll start with some general tips before moving on to specific encounters.

Mirror of Broken Images - 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. 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.

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 Barkskin on fights with repeated large damage that occurs more frequently than every minute (e.g. Nefarian's Electrocute every 10%).

Drums of Forgotten Kings - Note: It appears this may have been hotfixed to no longer work (24 March Hotfixes) This is an interesting one. Using the Drums instead of Mark of the Wild or Blessing of Kings 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. 
ETA: Several have asked about this, I grabbed a couple of screenshots in our last raid to show this... click: Mark/Kings with 195 Resist ; Drums of Kings with 247 Resist. Both SSs also have Resist Aura (Pally), Shadow Protection (Priest), and Nature Resist (Shaman).

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.

Power Auras Classic - This is a great Addon (one I use in my normal UI setup, visible here) 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.

Atramedes - 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.

Bastion of Twilight

Halfus

Quick Drake Guide

Time Warden: Grants the Proto-Behemoth the Fireball Barrage ability. Releasing slows the fireballs from the Proto-Behemoth.

Stormrider: Gives Halfus the ability to cast Shadow Nova. Releasing slows Halfus’ Shadow Nova cast time.

Nether Scion: Applies a +100% Attack Speed buff to Halfus. Releasing slows Halfus’ attack speed and reduces his damage done.

Slate Dragon: Gives Halfus Malevolent Strikes, a stacking healing debuff. Releasing occasionally paralyzes for 12 seconds. 

Whelps: Gives the Proto-Behemoth the Scorching Breath ability. Releasing reduces the Proto-Behemoth’s damage done.

As each drake dies, it causes Halfus to take 100% increased damage from all sources. Stacks.

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.

Furious Roar (cast by Halfus when he is sub-50% HP) is Physical damage, so Blessing of Protection 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.

Valiona and Theralion

Twilight Blast - 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.

Hunters can Deterrence Twilight Meteorite.

Power Auras Debuffs: Twilight Meteorite, Engulfing Magic, Blackout.

Important debuffs for healer’s raid frames: Blackout.

Ascendant Council

In Phase 1, the person with the Heart of Ice debuff should be near the group attacking Ignacious and the Burning Blood debuff near the group attacking Feludius for a buff to damage done before the debuffs are dispelled.

In Phase 2, the AE ability order is always Quake, Thundershock, Quake, Thundershock, 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.

Power Auras Debuffs: Lightning Rod. Heroic mode: Frost Beacon, Static Overload.

Important debuffs for healer’s raid frames: Gravity Crush in phase 3.

Cho’gall

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.

The Blood of the Old God (the small, oozey adds) can be stunned, slowed, and knocked back.

Good interrupts of the Worshipping 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. 

Some guildies provided an excellent macro for reliable individual stuns players can use to interrupt the Worshipping 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).

#showtooltip

/cleartarget

/targetenemyplayer

/cast (Name of Interrupt)

/targetlasttarget

For a cat, you could put in /cast Skull Bash(Cat Form) into the /cast line of that macro.

Displaying enemy nameplates can also help you immediately identify when players are mind controlled.

Blackwing Descent

Omnotron Defense System

Magmatron’s ability Acquiring Target can be removed by a Paladin’s Divine Shield, Rogue’s Cloak of Shadows, and a Mage’s Iceblock.

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.

Position the bosses so that they pass through Toxitron’s green Chemical Cloud - 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.

Stand in the Power Generator pools left by Arcanotron - they will boost your damage and mana regen!

Power Auras Debuffs: Lightning Conductor, Fixate, Acquiring Target. Heroic: Shadow Infusion, Encasing Shadows.

Important debuffs for healer’s raid frames: Acquiring Target, Lightning Conductor.

Magmaw

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 Pillar of Flame and Meteor (Heroic). This makes it immensely easier to see the fire and Pillar of Flame target spots, especially while in melee.

To disable, go to Options > Video > Projected Textures > Disabled.

I recommend turning it back on afterwards, as other fights have effects which need to be shown!

Resto Druids: Plant your Wild Mushrooms by the spike - when Magmaw is impaled, Detonate them for some nice damage!

Chimaeron

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.

For Boomkins: When afflicted by the Caustic Slime hit-reducing debuff, use Wild Mushrooms - they won’t miss.


A DPS can technically tank the Break 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 Chimaeron Raid Guide).

Heroic: In Phase 2, Nefarian begans casting Mocking Shadows, 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.

Important debuffs for healer’s raid frames: Low Health, Break.

Maloriak

The Flash Freeze 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.

Abilities like Hunter traps, Frost DK’s Howling Blast (with Chilblains), and Mage’s Ring of Frost can be helpful in slowing and stopping the adds managed by the kite tank.

Prime Subjects in the final phase fixate on a target and are immune to taunt. Blessing of Protection and other abilities are helpful on raid members targeted (especially healers or squishy DPS).

Power Auras Debuffs: Consuming Flames, Biting Chill, Dark Sludge (Heroic).

Important debuffs for healer’s raid frames: Flash Freeze, Engulfing Darkness (Heroic).

Atramedes

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.

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.

Nefarian

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.

To turn it off go to Options > Interface > Camera > Un-tick ‘Water Collision’.

Do not try to lifegrip (Leap of Faith) players onto the platforms - it doesn’t work and may get them caught on the lip of the pillars.

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 Magma 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.

Note: As of the 16 March Hotfixes, 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. 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. 

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.

The adds in Phase 2 which need to be interrupted are called Chromatic Prototype. 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.

Important debuffs for healer’s raid frames: Magma (lava), Heroic Mode: Explosive Cinders, Dominion.

Power Auras Debuffs: Explosive Cinders.

Throne of the Four Winds

Conclave of Wind

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 Wind Blast (cutters). 

Also for East Platform, in preparation for cutters it is best to hover carefully in melee range (avoiding tornadoes) before each Wind Blast. This will position you best for moving aside from the Wind Blast. 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. 

Wind Blast always rotates in the same direction (clockwise). 

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.

Al’akir

The Squall Lines (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.

People can be lifegripped (Leap of Faith) out of the Squall Lines.

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.

Power Auras Debuffs: Lightning Rod.

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.

Patch 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 MMO-Champion, as well as the official Blue Post here. 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 (Efflorescence Graphic Changed), who in turn found it on the Druid Forums I believe:

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!


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: New Efflo Discussion.


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 here. I've also updated the link within my guide.


Tangedyn also had an excellent post on The Inconspicuous Bear with good explanation of some of the feral cat changes with 4.0.6: Adapting your Cat for 4.0.6. 


There are four primary changes which he discusses:


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 Blood in the Water. 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.


2. With the above changes in mind, Glyph of Berserk 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.


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 Unheeded Warning which now increases your weapon damage, this trinket is now our BiS trinket by far.


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.




And finally, in some exciting news on the raiding front, we successfully took down Nefarian on Heroic mode this week!

Derwent, Blackwing's Bane!

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!


Also, Potion of Illusion + Sandstone Drake is just awesome: