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)!
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.
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.
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.
As this post is pretty light, I'll leave you with a video made by our Bear tank Reesi (of The Inconspicious Bear) 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)!
A quick post today, with my Heroic Conclave of Wind video!
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!
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).
Anyhow, without further ado, Conclave of Wind Heroic! (Watch in HD!)
For those interested, I actually run a different spec for this fight, 8/2/31, picking up 3/3 in Perseverance for the 6% reduced spell damage. I also still max out Gift of the Earthmother 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 Nature's Cure (as no dispels are needed in this fight), Swift Rejuv (simply as it's not a crucial point in here so I feel I can spare it), and only take 2 points in Efflorescence to get the 3 for Perseverance. 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.
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.
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).
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!
Video: Our Heroic Maloriak 25 man kill.
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).
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 'Engulfing Darkness'.
The Engulfing Darkness 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.
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.
One of the most fun things about the Maloriak hardmode is you receive the following awesome (yet sadly temporary) title:
You also get a fun debuff:
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!
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.
Video: Our recent Omnotron Defense System Heroic 25 kill. Information on the Heroic mode of this encounter is below the Normal mode abilities towards the end of this post.
Omnotron Defense System
The Omnotron Defense System is one of the first bosses you'll encounter in Blackwing Descent, and one of two bosses you will need to defeat in order to access the rest of the zone. Included in this guide are the boss abilities, strategy suggestions, and a video of our heroic mode kill and some info on the heroic mode abilities.
This fight is a council-type fight against four constructs with a shared healthpool - Magmatron, Toxitron, Arcanotron, and Electron. The constructs become active in a random order and you can face any combination at one time. You will fight against all four constructs in this encounter, however, only two constructs will be active at any given time. Spatial awareness and quick target changes are key to succeeding in this fight.
Each construct has an energy bar which starts at full when it is activated and decreases over time. At 50% energy, the construct will activate a shield specific to its abilities and become invulnerable and another construct will activate. The construct will deactivate at 0% energy and will remain inactive until reactivated by the encounter.
You can tell which construct will be activated next by a beam connecting from the forge in the back of the room to a deactivated construct. The beam will be a different colour for each construct - a red, magma-looking beam for Magmatron, a green beam for Toxitron, a purple beam for Arcanotron, and a blue lightning beam for Electron. Each construct has its own unique abilities.
Abilities (source) Arcanotron:
-Power Generator: Summons a Power Generator under a random friendly target. This generator increases damage by 50% of all friendly and enemy targets within 5 yards. Lasts 1 minute.
-Arcane Annihilator: Inflicts significant Arcane damage to a random enemy target. 1.5 second cast time. Can be interrupted.
-Power Conversion: Power Conversion converts damage against the target to be converted into additional Magic damage and increased cast speed. Purge, Spellsteal, or stop DPS.
Electron:
-Lightning Conductor: Targets and effects a raid member for 10 seconds, causing them to inflict Nature damage to nearby allies every 2 seconds.
-Electrical Discharge: Inflicts Nature damage to up to 3 enemies within 8 yards. Damage is increased by 20% between each jump.
-Unstable Shield: Attacks against the Unstable Shield cause a Static Shock at a nearby enemy's location. Stop DPS.
Magmatron:
-Incineration Security Measure: Inflicts 14000-15000 Fire damage every second for 4 seconds to the entire raid.
-Acquiring Target: Acquiring a target. After 4 seconds Magmatron will channel his Flamethrower on a target, inflicting ~35000 Fire damage every second to all enemies in front of him for 4 seconds. The Flamethrower appears as an obvious red beam directed onto the target.
-Barrier: Absorbs 150000 damage and, if the barrier is broken, it releases a gale of flame, inflicting ~76000 Fire damage to all enemies.
Toxitron:
-Chemical Bomb: Fires a Chemical Bomb at a random target, causing a Chemical Cloud at the location. The chemical cloud doubles damage taken and can affect Constructs as well as raid members.
-Poison Protocol: The Poison Protocol creates Poison Bombs that will explode after coming in contact with its target or after being killed. Poison Bombs will Fixate on random raid members and move towards them and will explode on contact. Poison Bombs can be snared and slowed.
-Poison Soaked Shell: Applies Soaked in Poison on melee and spell attacks which inflicts 5000 Nature damage every 2 seconds. Stacks. Will increase damage done to the target, however, it will also stack and inflict damage on any raid member effected.
Strategy
You will only need 2 tanks for this fight as only 2 constructs will be active at any one time. The fight will begin with only one Construct active, the second Construct becoming active when the first reaches 50% energy. The order of the constructs is random; you could start with a different construct each pull and have the remaining constructs activate in any order and in any combination. One construct will deactivate while a new one activates, freeing the tank to pick up the new boss.
Each construct has two unique offensive abilities and a third Shield ability which activates when the specific construct hits 50% energy. Quick target switches are key in this fight due to these shields - all of the shields will result in increased damage to raid members if they are DPSd. The shields are activated when a construct's energy reaches 50% - this is also the time a new construct will activate, so it is simple to change to the newly activated construct when the shield is powering up on the previous target.
Arcanotron's Power Generator forms light-coloured puddles on the ground which increases the damage of anyone standing in them and will regenerate mana for casters. The raid should move into these puddles when they can for the damage gain, though raid members shouldn't stand in them if it puts them in danger of an ability from a different construct. These puddles will also increase the constructs' damage, so the constructs should be moved out of them. Arcane Annihilator is a hard-hitting cast which should be interrupted. It may not always one-shot people, however, it will do significant enough damage that you could easily lose raid members if they are hit by this and another ability in quick succession.
Damage to Arcanotron's shield will give a haste buff to the Annihilator cast, so it is essential that DPS switches quickly and any stacks are Purged or Spellstolen.
Electron's Lightning Conductor affects a targeted raid member and causes them to shock nearby raiders with electricity. Any raid member affected should move away from the rest of the raid. Electrical Discharge is simply a chain lightning - you may find it easiest to spread your raid out whenever Electron is active to mitigate this damage, though it is not strictly necessary. Depending on your group and the composition of the two constructs active, you may find it more useful to keep your raid stacked together for AoE heals. If stacking, people should be aware of the chain lightning and healers prepared for quick top-ups so that you don't lose raiders to a combination of chain lightning and another ability.
Damage to Electron's shield is extremely dangerous - DPS to his shield will cause Static Shock which can quickly lead to a raid wipe. This includes the tank's damage! The tank will need to stop attacking as well when that shield goes up. ETA: A good note from our Bear Reesi (of The Inconspicuous Bear), even abilities like Demoralizing Shout/Roar will trigger this shield!
Magmatron's abilities are pretty hard-hitting and unavoidable. Incineration Security Measure inflicts an AoE Fire Damage to the entire raid. There is no way to avoid it - it must be healed through. Raid-wide cooldowns may be helpful, such as Power Word: Barrier and Aura Mastery. Acquiring Target focusses a Flamethrower (a giant red beam) onto a random raid member. The targeted member must be healed through it. Other raid members should ensure they are not caught in the beam or in front of Magmatron or they will be hit as well. You can choose to have the targeted raid member run away from the group or simply have the rest of your raid shift to avoid them. Having your raid move (rather than the target) may better help prepare you for Heroic mode, which I will touch on shortly. Certain abilities can avoid Flamethrower: Cloak of Shadows, Divine Shield, Ice Block.
Magmatron's Barrier shield will inflict massive AoE damage to the entire raid if it is DPSd and broken.
Toxitron's Chemical Bomb creates a green chemical cloud on the ground, doubling damage taken by anyone stood in the cloud. This includes damage the construct takes - if you are able to carefully position an active construct in the cloud, you can increase damage done to it significantly. Toxitron also summons adds called Poison Bombs. These are non-elites which will fixate on random raid members and explode for significant damage should they reach their target. These adds can be slowed, so abilities like Frost Trap and Earthbind Totem are extremely helpful. DPS must kill these adds before they reach their targets. Melee are best off retreating to range to ensure they are a safe distance away from the adds in case they are targeted, however, if they are not fixated, they can carefully assist in DPSing the adds as well. No one should use any aggro-dropping abilities such as Feign Death if they are fixated by an add - the adds will reset aggro and fixate on another target, which could result in the add fixating on someone who happens to be right next to them.
If you position Toxitron on one side of the room and your raid on the other, this can help to funnel the adds in a specific direction, making it easier to AoE them and to ensure they pass through any Frost Traps which may be down.
Toxitron's shield is arguably the least dangerous, Poison Soaked Shell applying a stacking Nature damage debuff. The debuff can be cleansed. This debuff will actually cause people to inflict additional Nature damage with their attacks, however, it will also inflict damage on the affected raid member. If your healers feel they can handle it, you may be interested in letting a few DPS remain on Toxitron a bit longer, though it may not be worth it. You will still need to change targets to the newly activated construct eventually.
The only ability which you may find you need to spread out for is Electron's chain lightning, which can arguably be handled while stacked up anyway. This may make it easier for targeted raid members (for Lightning Conductor and Fixate) to move out of the raid or for the raid to move away from them (such as for Magmatron's Flamethrower). Stacking up when you can may be helpful for raid healing and cooldowns like Power Word: Barrier to assist in healing. This in particular can be helpful in Heroic mode.
Heroic Omnotron Defense System
In all of the Blackwing Descent heroic modes, Nefarian appears to liven things up a bit and add difficulty to the fight. In addition to regaling us with his rather, er, eccentric presence, Nefarian generally adds a type of Shadow magic to the fight, giving the bosses additional abilities.
For the Omnotron Defense System, Nefarian adds an additional ability to each construct. Nefarian's meddling is on its own cooldown separate from the constructs, so you may find yourself faced with any of the new abilities depending on which constructs are active and when his cooldown timer is up. Some of these combinations can be particularly dangerous depending on which constructs are active at the time.
The Lightning Conductor will still tick for approximately 5 seconds while the target is becoming Infused with Shadow, so the target should move out of the raid initially. Once the Lightning Conductor turns into Shadow Infusion, though, the target must immediately re-stack with the rest of the raid (priest's Leap of Faith is excellent for whipping a target quickly back into the group) to reduce the damage. Damage from Shadow Infusion increases the farther people are from the target, so your raid must be stacked up to mitigate this damage. If a tank has to be out of the group for whatever reason, it is advisable to use external cooldowns.
This ability roots the Flamethrower target in place, preventing them from moving. This is why it's advisable to practice from normal mode always having the Flamethrower target remain in place while the rest of the raid moves to avoid the beam, so everyone is prepared should the target find themselves rooted by Nefarian.
Arcane Blowback: Nefarian fires shadows at a Power Generator pool left by Arcanotron, causing it to expand and explode, inflicting Arcane damage to anyone caught in it. (TY to Haast for pointing me to the name of this ability!)
Raid members need to be very aware of these pools when standing in them, as they can expand very rapidly when Nefarian targets one and the resulting explosion will severly injure, if not kill, anyone caught by it.
Grip of Death: Nefarian ports to the centre of a Chemical Cloud and grips the entire raid into the cloud. This can be a particularly dangerous ability, especially if it happens to be timed with Incineration Security Measure. The raid needs to move as quickly as possible back out of the cloud. It is also extremely important that adds are slowed and killed quickly. If any adds are still up and catch their target while the raid is gripped into the Chemical Cloud, you will likely wipe.
Heroic mode makes the normal mode spatial awareness and target swap requirements even more important as any losses can be extremely costly. You may wish to run more healers than you normally would to help deal with the significant raid damage.
Ultimately this Heroic mode comes down to knowing the different boss abilities and Nefarian's meddlings - raid members need to be able to react quickly and correctly to whichever Nefarian ability is active. The fight can quickly appear to become chaotic as people lose track of which constructs are active and which Nefarian ability is likely to be next. You can begin to figure out which Nefarian ability to expect based on his timer, though - as his cooldown finishes, you can plan to expect one of two abilities based on which constructs are active. For example, if Toxitron and Arcanotron are active, you can prepare for either being gripped into a Chemical Cloud or for a Power Generator pool to blow up.
Keeping the raid stacked together can be extremely useful for ensuring as many raid members as possible benefit from AoE healing and raid cooldowns like Power Word: Barrier, which you can see used frequently for the Incineration Security Measure in my Heroic video at the beginning of this guide. Similar cooldowns such as Aura Mastery and Divine Guardian can also be extremely helpful. There is a lot of damage both on raid members and on the tanks in this fight, and you may wish to run more healers than you would use on Normal mode. DPS does need to be strong, however, as there will be a 10 minute enrage timer on the Heroic mode of this fight (effective in Patch 4.0.6).
ETA: Added information from myself and Rexdart about our specs, gear, and strategy on this - all below the video!
In follow up to my post about 2-manning Sapphiron 10 the other week, my friend and I went back in the other night and took him down again! I remembered to video it this time (and actually insisted we wipe it the first time when the recording had a fault and stopped midway through the fight, so I could make sure I had a good video of the whole thing. Repair bills went into this recording!).
It was a ton of fun, and we learned from our kill last week and sped up the kill time by over a minute (though it still took 13 minutes - don't worry, the video has been sped up!). Mostly it was just being a little more strategic in our placement to avoid getting out of range of each other and deciding how we wanted to deal with the blizzards - we decided to just sit and take some of it, as keeping up the healing for it wasn't too demanding and constantly moving was hampering our DPS a bit.
Enjoy the video! (and share it around!) Link to the video here. You can watch it in HD! I'm embedding it at a smaller size just so as not to take up too much space on the blog page.
Also, on the topic of videos, I'd like to give a plug for my friend Bouncydemon's new YouTube page - he does some amazing videos (he made the official video for our Halion HM 25 kill) and will be making more in Cataclysm, so keep an eye on his channel! Bouncydemon's YouTube Channel
We didn't do anything too special for the fight itself - a lot is mostly the joys of overgearing content (and the healthpool boosts from 4.0.1 don't hurt either). We grabbed a food buff for this kill but we didn't have any for our last kill. The only buff used was Gift of the Wild and, apart from Wild's inherent Frost resist, we didn't use any additional Frost resist pieces.
My spec was my standard raiding spec (2/0/34) and my PvE gear (armoury) which is mostly 277 pieces. If you wanted to use a spec specifically for things like this, Fury of Stormrage would probably be a good talent to pick up to boost your DPS a bit more. I didn't find it necessary, but it would definitely be a nice talent to use to get some Starfires worked in there as well. I used my Tree of Life as a DPS cooldown in this rather than a healing cooldown (though as you can see my first one was poorly timed, as I wasted half of it in an ice tomb), tree-form Wrath spamming can pull some great DPS if you can keep it up, plus the instant-Regrowths make it much easier to recover quick big heals should anyone fall behind while you're DPSing. In hindsight, I probably could have thrown on a piece or two of +hit gear - missing wasn't costly at all, but it was a nuisance, particularly at one point where my Faerie Fire missed three times in a row. I mostly kept my Wraths to tree-form as it's such a long cast in caster form, but I tried to keep Moonfire and Insect Swarm up as often as I could as well as Faerie Fire from the start. I also tossed Thorns on Ortega whenever I remembered to add in a little more DPS there. Along with keeping HoTs up, I popped Efflorescence pretty exclusively onto Ortega, both for the big Swiftmend heal and to add that additional healing tick to give me more time to DPS or move.
For Rexdart, his spec is a PvE Beast Mastery spec (31/2/3) and his gear was also PvE gear of mostly 264 pieces (armoury). Glyph of Misdirection is a pretty great glyph to help pets build up good threat if it's needed. Ortega's spec is this (Tenacity). A pretty key talent Ortega has is Blood of the Rhino, increasing all healing effects on the pet by 40%. You can see in the video, too, Ortega has cooldowns as well - Shell Shield, effectively a shield wall with a 50% damage reduction, is used frequently.
From Rexdart: "As for things like building threat, Kill Command with some reforging of excess hit into mastery was more than enough threat generation. I honestly only needed to use MD once at the very beginning and that was it. Disengage was used to escape out of blizzards faster, and mend pet was used to help during transitions between air phases, assuming he didn't run out of range to the opposite side of where we were. There's actually two turtle damage reduction effects, which is why they are one of the best pets for tanking now: Shell Shield and Cower. Shell Shield when put on auto-cast seems to use some fairly smart AI, and I only see it activate when the pet drops to about 50% or less HP. Cower gets used whenever it's up when it's put on autocast. Being BM spec with Longevity, the cooldowns on these two get reduced to 42 seconds on SS and 31.5 on Cower, so the cooldown coverage is pretty good even with spamming. A few other solo-style hunters have a stamina gem set they use to boost up their pet's health even more. Currently I don't have this, but I could see a turtle tanking some of the bosses in ICC without too much trouble given a decent +stamina setup."
For the most part, the fight wasn't really complicated - ultimately it was a tank and spank, really. The air phase was trivial as both Rexdart and myself were icetombed each time, and Ortega's passive AE damage reductions (as a pet) protected him from the frost bombs. For me, I was focussing on balancing keeping us all alive and putting out DPS to help ensure we beat the enrage timer, and also decursing (as that curse heals Sapph). Rex will have been more focussed on managing Ortega's threat and survivability along with dishing out the damage. The main nuisance of the fight were the Blizzards, as they would inevitably target onto us (as there was no one else to target), but just intelligent decisions on when to remain standing in it and when to move out of it was all that was needed to deal with it. For positioning, we had to adapt after each air phase as Ortega would often shift positions, but we simply communicated that on vent to ensure we both went the same direction.
Patch 4.0.1 going live also marks the end to our permanent Tree form, as it's now become a cooldown (and, likely at some point in the future, into a revamped model). Whether you loved it or hated it, tree form will be missed by many. There were some amazing emotes (best /dance and /cheer, and surely the most tragic-looking /cry), tree-related puns, raid members 'sap'-ing you, threatening to chop you down with their axes or light you on fire, and just running around Dalaran... the fun went on!
There's a massive post up at MMO-Champ (here) detailing all the Class changes, the new Raid Lockout system, Reforging, Currency conversions, Glyphs... and more. There's kind of a lot.
The new streaming launcher is in place, so you can enter the game while patch data is still being downloaded. If the play becomes undesirable while streaming the download, you can exit the game and simply restart the launcher to resume the download.
WoW Insider has several useful posts up, a Roundup of Patch 4.0.1 Information, including links to their writers' class-specific posts about the class changes, which are very useful for getting a glimpse at the changes your alts will be going through. They also have posts reporting the Official 4.0.1 Patch Notes and Known Issues in 4.0.1.
Realm Maintenance has been extended by two hours to 2pm PST, so plenty of time to read up on all that info! Don't be too surprised if it's extended again - there's usually a bit of patch-day madness, particularly on major content patches.
Many addons have also already been updated for 4.0.1/Cataclysm, so don't forget to check your addons for updates before logging in! The Curse Client is a nice (and free, if you don't fancy the premium version) way to keep track of your addons and has an easy interface for updating your addons.
Full list of official 4.0.1 information and links by Blizzard here.
Apologies again for the reduced frequency in updates - just recently started a new job, which has been very time consuming!
I wanted to post a video of our Halion kill from the other week. A guildie, Bouncydemon, makes all of our guild's official videos, he does a really excellent job on all of them, and kept it up with another awesome video of our kill last week! You can see me running amok in his PoV ones, he was in the Twilight realm with me.
You can see the video plus information on music used, PoV and links to addons/armoury/etc on the youtube page here. Go give it a thumbs up and things and check out the other videos in the channel!
I have a number of mementos sitting in my bags and my bank. They all have some significance, whether a gift from a friend, a rare or no longer available item, or just something I thought worth holding onto. I thought I'd share some of them and their significance to me, and invite you to share any significant items that you've hung on to over your WoW days.
Sylvanas' Music Box: I only acquired this just recently, but it is easily one of my favourites. The music box is a reward from one of the five quests that are in the Unsealed Chest - this chest drops following a kill of the Lich King (25) after a Shadowmourne has been completed. The music box will summon two banshees (pictured above) who sing 'Lament of the Highborne.' Horde will recognise the song from the quest The Lady's Necklace; Sylvanas summons the singers when you return the necklace to her. Anyone immediately around you will be able to hear them sing when you use the music box (provided they have their game sound on). I love the song and the lore behind it. The song is a lament of the Fall of Quel'Thalas to the scourge.
Stone of Stupendous Springing Strides: A friend mailed this to me one morning after I had been feeling pretty down the previous night and I've kept it in my pack ever since! It brightened my morning and makes me grin whenever I look at it. It ensures I keep up my tree-jumping ways.
Tree Branch: I once fished up one of these! The one I fished up I gave to a friend (to help keep him healed when he didn't have a Tree nearby). The one in my pack now was given to me by a Tree friend in a previous guild one night when we were working on Lich King (25). What's a tree without branches?
Haunted Memento: For those who always wonder where those ghosts who follow people around come from, it's from a player having one of these - as long as it is in your pack, a dark shade will follow you around and place a 'Haunted' buff on you (something is with you...). I love having my ghost friend follow me around. I call him Wilfred.
Sulfuras and my Tier 1 Cenarion set: Even though I got these after the fact (rather than from raiding Molten Core in vanilla), I still find them special items to have. The tier set especially looks brilliant and feels very appropriate for a druid - I imagine my druid feels right at home in Moonglade in this garb. I have a lot of fun running around in them (and healing the occasional Random Dungeon in them!).
I have a fair few disguises and toys in my bags to keep myself amused, most of which are brought out while waiting for a raid to start or during our break. One of my favourites is the Orb of the Sin'dorei, which is particularly fun to use with the Swift White Hawkstrider and Phoenix Hatchling pet. I wish you could sneak into the Horde area in Dal with all of that on, but the guards aren't so easily fooled.
I have a bag of weapons sat in my bank, the majority of which I either think look brilliant (Black Ice, for instance, looks amazing) or have some significance (like Oathbinder, a souvenir from a Lich King kill). Another is the Lightborn Spire, a reward for restoring Quel'Delar from the Battered Hilt quest chain.
I've also kept a few of the more interesting quest rewards, like Don Carlos' Famous Hat and the Barov Peasant Caller from the Scholomance quest chain. The Spectral Essence they give you is quite neat as well - it allows you to see and communicate with the ghosts on Caer Darrow, who walk around as though things were still the same as on the day they died.
I'll end with a video I recorded of the music box so you can see the Banshees and hear the song.
I was playing with improving the video quality on my recordings (got them to HD, but they seem to still be lacking sharpness when uploaded to youtube) and did one of Sindragosa, so I thought I’d write a guide on healing Sindragosa to go along with it!
Once again, full detailed information on the encounter mechanics are best found at a place like Tankspot. There are many different strategies for dealing with the Iceblocks both in the air phases and in Phase 2 - go with whichever one works best for you and your raid team!
I grabbed the video the other night while we were clearing ICC. This is the 25 man Heroic version of the encounter. One of the key differences on heroic from regular mode is the Unchained Magic debuff causes an arcane explosion when it ticks off of a target. In phase 1, anyone afflicted should move out of the group to avoid exploding on the entire raid (you’ll see me have to do this in the video). In phase 2, those afflicted will ideally stop casting, as the raid will be grouped up by the ice blocks. You may prefer to have anyone afflicted stop casting both in Phase 1 and 2 - that’s down to your preferred strategy.
It is even more important on heroic mode to have a strong healing team that works well together and can rely on each other. You’ll have to watch your fellow healers’ backs; if any of them are Iceblocked or get Unchained Magic in phase 2, you will need to help them out and cover when they have to stop healing.
I personally find this encounter to be quite fun, especially while healing it as a druid!
Phase 1:
A druid’s HoTs are brilliant for dealing with the ticking aura damage in this fight, particularly in phase 1.
Healing phase 1 is quite straightforward. If you’ve got some solid dedicated tank healers in (a couple of pallies most likely), as a druid you’ll likely be able to focus mostly on the raid. I always like to keep an eye on the tanks while covering the raid, though - at least a Regrowth and a Rejuv kept up on the tanks at all times is very helpful, and be ready with your Swiftmend and Nourish to boost the heals on the tank if it’s needed. Also be ready in case your tank healers get Unchained Magic!
Your Rejuvs and Wild Growths will work wonders on topping up the raid. Targeting your Wild Growth on the melee will be a helpful extra boost on them, particularly for those who have let their Biting Cold debuff get too many stacks.
Your main nuisance in phase 1 will likely be Unchained Magic, particularly on Heroic. Be ready for quick big top-ups should anyone have their explosion go off in the raid. Sindragosa’s death grip of the raid is a particularly risky moment - this will often come while Unchained Magic is still affecting raid members. This is the most likely time that you’ll have explosions going off amongst the raid as people are sucked in with the debuff still ticking. If people are quick, they’ll be able to throw in a cast or two to extend the debuff before it falls off and explodes (I’ll usually toss a quick Lifebloom or Wild Growth if I get in this situation). If not, though, you’ll end up with some going off and raiders needing some big heals.
Iceblocks: You can’t heal a target once they are iceblocked, BUT, HoTs WILL continue to tick on targets that are Iceblocked. It is immensely helpful to get at least a Rejuv or another HoT on players targeted for Iceblocks. The iceblocks will cause some damage when they hit, so your HoTs will tick on the players and heal them up while the rest of the raid is working to free them. Having the player topped up inside the Iceblock also gives crucial extra time should your raid be slow on freeing them and the player begins to suffocate.
A note for other healers: Priest’s Renew and Shammy’s Riptide are helpful if you can get these on players as well, and a Disc priest’s Bubble is very helpful for negating much of the initial Iceblock damage too.
There ideally is minimal to no healing required during the air phases as the entire raid should be LoS’ing every frost bomb. The frost bombs will one shot any player on Heroic, so it’s best your raid practices avoiding every one on regular as well.
Phase 2:
Phase 2 begins when Sindragosa hits 35% health.
This is where the fight becomes trickier to heal, as you now have increased damage on the entire raid and tanks due to the Mystic Buffet debuff. It’s very important your raid members watch their stacks of Mystic Buffet and LoS Sindragosa to let the stacks drop off. Your tanks also need to coordinate well so that their stacks will drop too - if their stacks get too high, they risk getting one-shot by Sindragosa’s frost breath.
Phase 2 requires a lot of coordination and awareness from every raid member. Healing strategy will be similar to Phase 1, but much more demanding due to the increased damage.
It is important to be on your toes in Phase 2 and be aware and communicating with your fellow healers - you need to be ready to switch from raid healing to tank healing (or vice versa) at the drop of a hat should your other healers get Unchained Magic or Iceblocked. It may help your raid to run more healers than they might otherwise (particularly on heroic) to help provide backup should any of the healers be unable to heal.
Iceblocks are crucial in Phase 2 so the raid and tanks can drop their Mystic Buffet stacks, so topping up Iceblock targets is very important. Because the iceblocks cause damage when they hit a target, if a player is too low on health they risk dying when struck, and your raid will lose an iceblock. If I see an iceblock target is low on health, I’ll pop a Regrowth on them to heal them up and apply the HoT to heal them up in the block.
You shouldn’t run into Line of Sight issues while healing the raid in this phase, as the majority of the raid will likely be with you behind the ice blocks to Line of Sight Sindragosa. You may run into issues when covering the tanks, though. You only need to LoS the centre of Sindragosa to drop the Mystic Buffet stacks, so, depending on your choice of Iceblock strategy, you may find you can stand in such a way that you will still LoS the boss but have access to your tanks. If you cannot do this, though, you may have to carefully pop out between blocks to heal. Again, communicate with your fellow healers!
All of phase 2 is a delicate balancing act between keeping the raid topped up and healing the tanks. Remember, coordination and communication is key!
Good luck and have fun!
Feel free leave comments with any questions you may have on the encounter.
We were short a few people the other night, so we bonked out Ruby Sanctum (25) quickly on normal mode. I decided to record it, so here's the finished video :D The quality isn't amazing, would have liked to get it HD, but need to either figure out how to improve the quality of the in-game recorder or download a proper programme. I had a lot of fun adding the music and sounds; the music ended up syncing brilliantly, even right down to the phase changes! The track is (appropriately titled) 'A Pressing Need to Save the World' by Murray Gold.
See my discussion on healing Ruby Sanctum for more info on healing the encounter.
ETA: Sorted out how to get videos in HD, so will grab some more vids in HD quality to add soon :D
