Mini-Deathwing and Masteries!

It's been a bit of a slow week news-wise, though there has been some beta updates and a lot of great screenshots of some of the new zones. There was an interesting Q&A about the changes to the Barrens, which you can see over on MMO Champ. They also dug out a model of a new Mini Deathwing pet. It's not clear yet how you can obtain this pet, speculation is it may come with Collector's Editions of Cataclysm, however it could also end up a drop or a pet from the Blizzard Store.

We've also seen some more information in a blue post about Druid masteries in Cata, which have been added in the most recent beta.

 Druid 

• Restoration - Increases the potency of your heal over time spells by up to 20% based on the current health level of your target (lower health targets are healed for more). Healing increased further by mastery rating.
• Feral - Increases the damage absorbed by your Savage Defense ability by 32% and increases the damage done by your Cat Form bleed abilities by 20%. Absorb and damage increased further by mastery rating.
• Balance - Increases the bonus damage from Eclipse by 12%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.

It will be interesting to see just how these stats work out in Cata. All of these bonuses are increased by Mastery rating on gear, but how Mastery rating will be prioritized in terms of gems (and possibly enchants) and gear will take some analysis. All of the talents and related stats and spells are in flux in the beta, so it's difficult to get a firm grasp on just how things will work and balance out when Cataclysm finally drops. 

Just reading over the Masteries as they are at the moment, it looks like there will definitely be caps as to where it will be ineffective/wasteful to pass a certain level of Mastery rating. I'm noticing this particularly for the Restoration Mastery, where HoT spell potency is increased 'by up to 20%' - the 'by up to' being the key phrase in there. Whether that is fully intended and how much it will change is still up in the air, but it is highly unlikely that stacking pure Mastery rating will be desirable for any spec. The Feral and Balance masteries seem to have a set initial bonus which is increased by additional Mastery rating (rather than up to a set point) which is likely to have a cap as well. As Cataclysm gets closer and actually drops, I'm sure theorycrafting will get into full swing and determine just where the caps will be.

Balancing stats should become a bit more manageable with the advent of Reforging (which you can see an update here on MMO). 

This is one image from MMO Champ showing the change in stats - for those who don't know, Reforging will allow you to reduce a stat on a piece of gear in order to add in another stat. As you can see in the image above, on this piece of gear the player has reduced their Haste Rating in order to add some Hit Rating. This will be a helpful feature for optimizing gear for your needs, particularly if a piece doesn't look all that good at first glance. You can Restore an item's original stats after Reforging, which so far is looking like you can do so as often as you wish, so any changes you make will not be set in stone.

There was also a post over at WoW.com letting us know that Cataclysm is still on track for a 2010 release. Mike Morhaime, Blizzard's CEO, is quoted as saying:

"... I'd like to point to the release of Cataclysm, being our best expansion yet for World of Warcraft. Although an exact release date has not yet been announced, we're on track to launch the expansion by the end of the year. As with all Blizzard games, though, we won't release until it's ready." 

Some good news there!

I'll keep this post brief and wrap up with another good reminder on account security from Blizzard; Password Security Information. Good advice as ever, to use a different password for your WoW account than you use on your email accounts or anything else. In the horrible event that your WoW account does get hacked, you don't want those hackers rooting around through your emails or personal information as well! Be sure to keep yourself and your information safe!

More posts to come soon!

Step into the arena!

I haven't always been a fan of PVP and, frankly, battlegrounds still often drive me to silly levels of frustration (getting set upon by a gang of 5-10 horde is not my idea of fun). I recently started trying some arenas, though, and have had a lot more enjoyment out of those.

For one, Arenas feel like a much more fair fight - whether 2v2, 3v3, or 5v5, the fight will be fairly balanced (ignoring all the 'overpowered!' QQ on the forums) and typically require much more skill and strategy. There is, of course, skill and strategy to be had in battlegrounds (particularly in pre-mades), but for the solitary person hopping into a random BG, especially if inexperienced, it can all seem chaotic and disjointed.

I'm still a die-hard PVEer at heart, so my current foray into the world of Arenas is mostly for fun and more importantly (for me, anyway) for knowledge and skills applicable to PVE. That's right - many things in PVP can greatly help your PVE skills!

I don't profess to be an expert in PVP or Arenas, but I'll touch on the spec and glyphs I'm using at the moment before moving on to some tips from Arena and their PVE relevance.

I have tried some 5s, but mostly I've been doing 2v2s with a DK in my guild. I've been playing with a 21/0/50 spec at the moment (though may try a slightly more offensive 21/0/50, taking Vengeance). The key point changes are in Natural Perfection and Improved Barkskin (for damage reduction) and Insect Swarm in the Balance tree (for more offensive utility). I've been picking up points in Celestial Focus in Balance for the spell haste (as I lose a lot of haste in my PVP gear) and the points in Brambles for the Dazed chance in an attempt to help slow opponents more. The glyphs I've been using have been Swiftmend (still a crucial glyph), Barkskin, and Insect Swarm (to increase its damage).


There are several things Arenas can teach you that can be very useful for PVE.
These are:
-Defensive abilities.
-Offensive abilities.
-Crowd Control (CC).
-Awareness (spatial and of teammates).
-Movement.

All of these can help you in ANY spec, I should add - not only while healing!
Also, while these suggestions are aimed at druids, they are an excellent jumping-off point to think about similar abilities in other classes as well.

Let's start with Defensive abilities.
When I first started healing, I'll admit, I rarely thought to use Barkskin and definitely didn't think to use Nature's Grasp. I actually only started even thinking about these spells after talking with a Tree friend a while back. We started discussing these abilities after a particularly epic (read: messy) Faction Champions fight which we were healing together and, after I ended up checking out the lovely woodwork on the floor of the Coliseum and he survived til the end of the fight, he started telling me about how he used these abilities in Arenas and how they helped him in the fight.

Using these abilities on Faction Champs is a pretty obvious correlation to Arenas, but both of these spells are useful in all PVE encounters. Barkskin, certainly, should always be on your bars. You can use it while stunned, frozen, incapacitated, feared, or asleep, in any of your forms. It is a straight damage reduction tool. If you miss a spore on Festergut, it will likely save your life on Pungent Blight, or if a stray add gets on you it will give you that extra second of survivability while the tank picks it up.

Nature's Grasp, particularly in its current inception (3 charges), is also excellent, especially on fights with adds or on trash. Whether you're in ICC or just running a 5-man dungeon, there may be a point where an add slips away from the tank or just decides you look tasty. Nature's Grasp can root it and give you that extra second again to get away.

Another great ability is Bear Form. Bear Form and Dire Bear Form, regardless of which spec you are, will increase your armour and your health. This is another great way to reduce incoming damage. Another key spell available in Bear Form is Frenzied Regeneration - this ability converts 10 rage per second into health for 10 seconds. If you're starved for rage, you can always pop Enrage as well; this will lower your armour (unless you have the T10 4-piece feral bonus) but help feed that heal. Whether you're an oom moonkin or tree needing a heal, needing the extra armour while healing yourself, or need a stronger heal than what you can muster as a feral, Frenzied Regen can be a great help.


Offensive abilities.
For the DPS specs, this will likely be less of an issue for you, seeing as your primary role is offensive/damage dealing abilities.

Arenas can offer Trees some good practice at DPSing, though, and, more importantly, at balancing your offensive spells with healing. With most people outgearing heroics (and even outgearing some raids), it can be fairly easy and predictable to DPS while healing in PVE. The randomness of PVP in Arenas, though, can really sharpen your skills in recognizing when you can (and when you must) be offensive or defensive.

I picked up Insect Swarm in my 2v2 spec for this reason, to help increase the damage my teammate and I could place on opposing players and to provide another nuisance for them to deal with. I cannot, however, run in and mindlessly spam my Insect Swarm, Moonfire, or other spells. At the same time, though, if the healing required at the moment isn't as high, I shouldn't be sitting there doing nothing, I should be helping my partner. I need to be ready and able to switch what I'm doing and switch my targets quickly and strategically, whether I'm helping burn the last few hitpoints off one target, causing a nuisance to distract their healer off my partner's target, or making sure I don't fall behind on healing myself and my partner.

Also, in Resto, you will have to shift out of form to cast offensive spells. This will be changing in Cata (indeed, it's part of why Tree of Life form is changing, as the word from Ghostcrawler was they wanted to give us more offensive capabilities as Trees/make it so we were less penalized when using them (as shifting out of tree we lose our armour buff, our healing buff, and our spellpower buff). But it's something to keep in mind, and even more so now as we have to make conscious decisions about when we do shift to caster form.

A particularly key spell, both in Arenas but also in PVE (especially if you are the only druid in the group or raid), is Faerie Fire. It decreases a target's armour by 5% and, particularly key in Arenas, prevents the target from going stealth or invisible. This debuff can be of great help in PVE, particularly for physical damage classes. 

-Crowd Control (CC).

Druids have several good forms of CC, the best of which being Cyclone. 

Cyclone is an excellent CC, both in PVP and in PVE. In PVP perhaps you might use it to chain cyclone the opposing team's healer while you rip apart their dps partner (or vice versa), or alternating on dps targets while you wear each one down. The cycloned target becomes immune while stunned, so you can use it to prevent a target from receiving heals. It can also act as an interrupt of sorts - a well timed cyclone can stop a heal or cast going off. 

In PVE, cyclone is an excellent way to CC mind-controlled players on certain fights (Lady Deathwhisper, for example) while also preventing them from being damaged by friendly-fire. (Some fights you cannot control MC'd people, however, such as on Blood Queen Lanathel). I also quite like it's cast-stopping effect and I find myself using that quite often, particularly in 5-mans (like in Old Kingdom when no one kills or interrupts the Spell Flinger's Shadowblast, which causes damage equal to 80% of the targets health). Cyclone can also be used in any spec - boomkins do not have to shift form to use it (trees and bears/cats do), trees can get an instant cast if they use Nature's Swiftness, ferals can get an instant cast when Predator's Swiftness procs.

Entangling Roots (along with Nature's Grasp) can root a target in place, giving people time to escape or simply holding the target in one place.

Bash in Bear will stun a target for 4 seconds and interrupt NPC spellcasting for 3 seconds. This is a nice back-up I find both in Arenas (particularly with casters) and in PVE with mind controlled people who have not been otherwise CC'd, particularly as the shift into Bear will grant you some additional armour. Feral Charge - Bear is also a useful interrupt for Feral druids to use against casters. Pounce is another fun stun, usable in any spec in cat form (though you must be stealthed), but it does apply a bleed, so not to be used against CC'd targets (particularly friendly targets!).

Hibernate is a particularly fun CC if you can get it off. This only works on beasts and dragonkin, but, druids (in bear, cat and travel form) and shamans in ghost wolf all count as beasts. This can be a handy way to deal with druids (especially feral ones), shamans if you can catch them in ghost wolf, and also hunter pets. I particularly like using this in BGs as with all the running, you're more likely to catch these players in forms (especially the shamans).

-Awareness (spatial and of teammates).

Awareness is key in anything and everything in WoW. Arenas can really sharpen your awareness as the encounter is much less predictable than a PVE encounter. You really need spatial awareness, awareness of your teammates and, building on that, awareness of other classes and their abilities.

Much like you don't want to stand in fire in a raid, you don't want to go toddling straight into incoming damage in an arena. A DK just threw out a DnD, you have to move out of it, you just saw the hunter fire a Freezing Arrow, you may want to avoid that direction for a couple of minutes to avoid getting frozen in an ice trap. You also need to be aware of the surroundings of the arena - are there obstacles that you could LoS your attackers with, or that your partner could get trapped behind and out of sight of you? Where is your partner, are they in range or not? If you're attacking one opponent, are you certain your partner isn't in the corner stun-locked by a rogue? If they are, what will you do about it? Have you been focussing so much on one player that you haven't noticed the other opponent is off in the corner preparing for another strike?

There's a lot going on that you need to pay attention to, and a lot you can do to act and react to the situations as they come. Use obstacles to your advantage - I (literally) spent 26 minutes kiting a shaman and a hunter around a big pole (much to their annoyance and my amusement), it took them forever to finish me off just because I kept slipping out of sight. Where can you see this in PVE? LoSing mystic buffet and frost bombs on Sindragosa, for one. Be aware of what's happening to your partner - they may need heals, or they may need you to put some pressure on the player that's wailing on them, or need your help in finishing off a target. Similarly in PVE, especially as a healer but also as any class or spec, being aware of the people you're raiding with and how you can help each other can greatly improve the raid.

Being aware of other classes and their abilities is also extremely helpful, both in PVP and PVE. In PVP, this might help you by knowing what abilities your partner has in his arsenal and by what you can expect from your opponents (and how to counter!). For example, Shamans will love to purge your buffs and HoTs off of you. Lifebloom, however, will Bloom if it is purged - healing you and returning mana in the process! Knowing this, you can use this to your advantage, using Lifebloom a lot and having the shaman either help you (by purging them off) or stop him purging altogether. You can also see when cooldowns are burned on targets (and know what cooldowns or abilities are available). For example, you put enough pressure on a Pally opponent that you forced him to Bubble. He'll now have the Forebearance debuff, where he'll be unable to use his other Bubbles or LoH on himself while that's up. That's also good to know in PVE - say your tank just had to pop Divine Protection (shield wall), he'll now have Forebearance and be unable to LoH himself. There are also dangerous CC abilities - while druids can shapeshift out of polymorph effects, a Warlock will be able to Banish a Tree (making you immune, but unable to act), another druid can cyclone or hibernate you, shadow priests can silence you... the list can go on!

There is a wealth of information about other classes and a whole host of abilities that can be helpful and harmful both in PVP and PVE, and as much as you can learn about them all, the better! If heading out and reading about them all seems a bit daunting, I highly recommend chatting with friends you have in other classes (I'm sure they'd love to chat about what they do! I always have fun on both sides of conversations like that, whether learning about someone else's class or telling them about my own), or checking it out for yourself and playing with the abilities by playing an alt.

-Movement.

Mobility is pretty key for druids in all specs and we have a range of abilities that make us all the more mobile. We can shapeshift out of polymorphs and snares (incidentally, a great macro for PVE and PVP is '/use !___ Form', ie, /use !Tree Form. Using this will shift you right back into that form (ie /use !Cat Form, or /use !Dire Bear Form) in one GCD without stopping into caster form, which can be key for retaining armour or utility at certain times). 

We can shift into Cat form and Dash to sprint away, we can shift into Travel Form for 60% increased movement speed. We can cast HoTs on the go. We can do a Nature's Grasp, Cyclone, or Roots and Dash away, we can even go into Aquatic form and swim away! We have many instant spells (both damage-dealing and healing), feral charge -bear and -cat in feral. On and on! Yes, there are times when we need to stop and cast, but we are for the most part free to move, so there's no reason why a druid should ever be stood dead still in someplace they shouldn't be! Or else you'll end up, well, dead.



Well, that is all for now! I hope you have found this useful and perhaps may look to venture into the world of arenas as well. I'll see about posting more on arenas in future as I get some more experience, for some good information now though specific to arenas, I recommend some of these links:
WoW PvP Forums; WoW Druid Forum - PvP Feral Guide; WoW Druid Forum - PvP Resto Guide; Arena Junkies.

How to Nom on bosses! (aka how to be a cat!)

At long last, I've finished and posted my guide to feral dps! Rather than spam the main page like I did with my Resto guide (which I also partly did to give a few extra posts for the launch of the blog), I published it straight to my pages section (all my Pages are listed on the right-hand side of the blog).

You can find the full guide here: How to be a Cat!

For those who may be following the blog through google reader or RSS feed and haven't spotted the list of pages on the main site, you can also find the full Tree guide here: How to be a Tree!

I will also be compiling the posts of healing guides into one page as new ones are posted to make it easier to access them all. They'll all be linked at the list here.

Enjoy!

Guardian of Cenarius

I've just about completed my Cenarion Raiment set (only missing the boots), but the robes finally dropped so it looks complete nevertheless!

The Cloak of Unending Life from the AQ20 quests (made with the Idols, Scarabs, and drops in AQ20) matches it perfectly too. I don't have the best weapon for it (something like Dreambinder would probably be fitting), but it's quite fun using my Sulfuras with it, even if it does look a bit out of place.

I had a ton of fun healing a few randoms in the gear, so I may start doing that now to liven up my daily LFG (though if I get any of the ICC 5-mans I'd have to pop my proper gear back on).

I think this is one of my favourite tier sets - I love the leaves and twigs, and it just looks very much like something I'd imagine a druid would wear. If any tier set model were to be revived in Cataclysm or later, I would definitely hope it would be this one. The Cenarion Expedition tabard goes quite well with it all too, and the Guardian of Cenarius title just tops it off. Altogether it makes a really great druid set!

User Interfaces

I thought I'd make a post about my UI, to show some useful things both for healing and dpsing and perhaps give some ideas for those personalizing their UIs.

I had a friend suggest making a UI package for people to use, so I'll likely try to set that up, especially if there's interest. I'll try to do that ASAP, I need to look into the best and simplest way to set that all up (and likely write some info on setting up the included addons).

What follows are what I'm using at the moment. My basic interface is still the Blizz standard - I personally quite like the party/target frame setup at the moment. I also got very accustomed to using the default action bars, particularly once I set up a hotkey system that made good sense to me. I did prefer to scale everything down, though, reducing the action bar and user frame sizes significantly. This cleared up a lot of space on my screen (and is one less addon to worry about as well). You can do this by going to Menu - Video - Resolution; tick 'Use UI Scale' and adjust the slider from Low to High to adjust the size of all of that.
I use all the action bars. Go to Menu - Interface - Action Bars and tick which ones you want (bottom left, bottom right, right 1 and 2).

For basic raid standards I have Recount (including RecountGuessedAbsorbs, which is useful for measuring Disc bubbles in fights), Omen, oRA2, and Deadly Boss Mods.

I use Parrot for my scrolling combat text. I particularly like Parrot as it shows stickies for crits and can show cooldowns/procs/etc as well which can be useful additional reminders. The only time I have to disable it is when raiding on my tanking toons, as there's simply too much incoming information (between incoming and outgoing damage and heals) that I end up having difficulty seeing, and I don't want to miss seeing a stray add or something similar.

I use Quartz for cast bars.

I also have FuBar, which I find is useful for various things (DualSpecFu for swapping talents, GuildFu and FriendFu for seeing friends, NameToggleFu for quickly turning names/guild tags on and off (useful for screenshots), DurabilityFu for keeping track of repairs, and some others).  (Note - I had to do some fiddling with FuBar at the Halion patch, as I don't believe it's currently being updated. To fix it I believe I went into the addon file and pulled its Libraries out of the FuBar folder and just straight into the general addons folder. This made it easy to update the Libraries (using Curse's client), which got FuBar functioning again with the patch).

I use SexyMap simply for cosmetics, my druid has the 'Emerald Portal' map, and I tend to put different maps for each toon. I also use TipTac for tooltips.

I'll start with a shot of my kitty setup to show some useful addons for feral.

(Click the screenshots to see them full-size - you can also pull them up in a separate window that way).

The main addons of note here are Rogue Power Bars, Power Auras Classic, and ArcHUD.

Rogue Power Bars are the bars just below my toon showing my buffs and debuffs. This is an excellent way to keep track of all your buffs and debuffs as cat, which are crucial in your rotation. As you can see, the timers are keeping track of my Savage Roar, and of my Rip, Mangle and Rake on the target. You can also set it up to track your Berserk timer (I didn't pop Berserk for this shot so you could see the Power Auras, which I'll get to). You can also enable it to track other's debuffs, particularly Mangle (cat), Mangle (bear) and Trauma (arms warrior), which is very useful if someone else is the Mangle-bot so you know you're safe to keep on shredding instead of refreshing the debuff.

Power Auras is showing a few things in that shot. You can see my Tiger's Fury is ready (the tiger icon below my toon), Berserk is ready (to the right of the three icons), and in the centre is my Omen of Clarity  notification (which also makes two blue arcs around my toon). Power Auras is great for tracking spell cooldowns (like Berserk) or for notifying you when you gain buffs or procs (like OoC). Especially in cat, at OoC procs I try to get in another free shred, so it's crucial to see that it's available. The red ring around my toon is showing me that Predator's Swiftness is up. I mainly use this when PVPing as feral (though it has its uses in PVE), I also have it make a loud raid warning sound, so I know that the proc is up and that I can get an instant spell off (an instant Cyclone most likely in PVP, perhaps an instant Rebirth in PVE).

The last main one there is ArcHUD, which shows both my HP (and in this case, my energy), the target's HP, and, nicely for cat, it shows my combo points on the target. I like having all of these things centred around my toon so I can keep an eye on my combo points, my buffs/debuffs, my spell cooldowns, and all the while still be watching my toon and my feet (so I can avoid fire).


Now onto my Tree UI, which I'll also go over some of the raiding addons as well (I raid primarily as Tree).

Here again you can see Power Auras and ArcHUD. Rogue Power Bars is still on, but I disable the 'Track Other's Debuffs' while healing as it would otherwise get in the way of my healing frames.

I'll touch quickly first on Power Auras since I've already explained it above. In resto, I use it to track my Nature's Swiftness cooldown so that I know when it is available. Again, Omen of Clarity is set up as well. My last one is for Wild Growth to show me when it's available for use.

Along with Deadly Boss Mods (DBM), I also downloaded the additional DBM Spell Timers. You can see some of the timers it tracks on the upper right - I can see all the Misdirects and Tricks of the Trade that have just been cast on this initial pull. This is particularly useful for tracking Battle Rezzes and Innervates - with just a glance I can see whose Battle Rez is available and, if I'm desperate for mana I can ask for an innervate, or if I see another druid is desperate for mana and has already used their innervate, I can toss them mine.

The primary addon of note here though is Vuhdo (all the green bars dead centre). I use this addon to heal (though I've grown to love it so much that I now use it on all of my toons, including non-healing ones, as raid frames).

Vuhdo has been my favourite addon to use both for healing and otherwise. It's very customizable and easy to setup, so it's easy to get started with it and get it looking exactly how you want it to look. I personally like using the green bars (if you've seen either the Sindra or Halion videos I posted, you can see how they shift colour as people get low in health). It's also an extremely informative addon. Symbols will pop up on it at certain debuffs (which you can also customize if you do or don't like them), such as Icetomb targets on Sindra, Vile Gass on Festergut, Bone Spikes on Marrowgar, Incinerate Flesh on Jaraxxus, so forth. This is one of the primary reasons I use it as raid frames on all of my toons - I can easily see what's happening to everyone in the raid at any given time by just glancing at it.

It has several nice things for druids (and other classes). For druids, you can activate the setting to see when Swiftmend is available on a target (the red dot on the bar in the screenshot above is indicating Swiftmend is available). This is great for several reasons - for one, it will show you that your Swiftmend is off cooldown and ready to use. Secondly, this lets you see when Swiftmend is available on a target affected by another druid's HoTs (without needing indicators for others HoTs). With that, I can easily see any Swiftmendable target.

In that shot there, I've loaded myself fully with HoTs so you can see the indicators. I use the little HoT timer dots in Vuhdo to track mine. On the bar, moving around, top left is my Rejuv, top right are my Lifeblooms (additional stacks will cause the little square marker to change colours), bottom right is my Regrowth HoT, and bottom left is my Wild Growth.

You can also see the Quartz castbar for myself.

The best thing with using Vuhdo (or a similar addon such as Healbot) is I never have to target a person to heal them if I don't want to (though this can also be done with things such as mouseover macros). This leaves me free to target whomever I feel like; the boss, to keep track of its HP percentage perhaps, a specific tank perhaps, a Kinetic Bomb that's looking neglected in Princes, etc. Back when I took my first foray into healing (in 5-man dungeons while leveling) I tried the simple Target person taking damage, heal! I found this really slowed my reaction time, though. That is probably the biggest advantage to using an addon like Vuhdo - my reaction times are much better, which is particularly crucial in raids. In the seconds it would take to target someone taking damage and then heal them, they've likely already been healed by someone quicker. Since I no longer have to target anyone, I can directly and quickly heal them with Vuhdo.

Vuhdo also has a Buffwatch which is nice to use. You can set it to either Smart buff (automatically use group buffs when x amount of people are missing the buff, or use the single buffs when only 1 or 2 are missing the buff), always Group buff, or always Single buff. This is nice pre-pull for buffing to ensure everyone is buffed. You can also set specific targets - Thorns, for example, you can set to track always the tanks, or just yourself, or everyone. It also shows the time remaining on your buffs and who's low.

You can also set up different profiles for different specs on the same toon, so you don't end up running out of bindings to use, or if you have different spells. I use this primarily on my priest (who is Disc/Holy, I use the same binds for Penance and Circle of Healing and Pain Suppression and Guardian Spirit) and on my Paladin (mainly so I can have Righteous Defense up in his Prot spec but make sure it's not keyed up in his Holy spec). There are also configurations for working with Clique and with Pally Power should you choose to.

It's nice that Vuhdo can help you watch for some incoming damage (showing instantly who is marked for an Iceblock on Sindragosa, for example, so you can toss a HoT or heal on them), however, it's no substitute to knowing the fight and being aware of your surroundings! Knowing/learning the incoming damage you can expect in fights, seeing when raiders are in hazardous spots, and listening to your raiders, particularly your tanks (who may be calling for Cooldowns, or announcing that they're out of cooldowns to mitigate damage), will all help your healing tremendously.

Also, a note; under the 'Spells' tab on Vuhdo is a SmartCast configuration. I do tick Smartcast for rezzes/battlerezzes (makes BattleRezzing that much easier/quicker, I can get someone up instantly if necessary), however, I turn OFF (untick the box) for cleansing and buffs. The smart cleanse will basically instantly cleanse/decurse someone when you click their bar. You will likely NOT want to have this on - on a fight like Halion, it will likely result in you cleansing someone too early. It will also mean instead of healing the person (if that's what you tried to click the bar to do), you will cleanse them, which may end up meaning they're cleansed... but dead.

Some last things of note on my UI. 
Chat boxes: I don't use any chat addons (though many use Prat), I do like to separate some things out of my primary chat window though. In the last screenshot you can see that I've moved all my system messages (rolls, announcements of people logging, etc) into a seperate, smaller window in the bottom left of my screen. This is to prevent these messages from spamming my chat window (up where I've said HAI in guild hehe) so I don't miss anything important said in Guild, Raid, or in our role-specific channels during raids.

For my action bars - although I'm normally using Vuhdo for my heals, I still have my healing spells (and some others) keybound for easy use should I need to use them at any time. Particularly on a fight like Valithria, if I'm healing the dragon, I tend to prefer to use a macro to /tar and /focus her to bring up a bar on Vuhdo to track my HoTs, but heal her directly. My Nature's Grasp and Barkskin are hotkeyed, as well as lockrocks, manapots, Cyclone, etc.



Hm, this ended up being a much more involved post than I had anticipated!
I'll see about setting up a UI pack, and can go into detail in an accompanying text file for how to actually set things up/customize the addons.

Feel free to leave any comments with questions!

Shared Topic: A Picture Tells a Thousand Words

I'm excited by this week's Shared Topic on Blog Azeroth, 'A Picture Tells a Thousand Words' by Nuniel. I love taking pictures, both with my proper camera and in WoW, and consequently my Screenshot folder is packed with thousands of shots. I think the hardest part for me on this topic was simply deciding which one to share!

I finally decided on this one:

A Candle for the Fallen

I only came across this location recently - Dreadmist Peak in the Barrens. I had never done any quests up here, though some of you who quested in Kalimdor may remember it. It is quite a remarkable place... as you climb the peak, you leave the sunny savannah of the Barrens behind and enter a thick, dark, foggy atmosphere tinged umber and gold as the sun pierces through the haze. As well as the occasional tallstrider, you will find Burning Blade cultists who have infested the top of the peak. You can find spots on the peak that are still uninhabited, though, or do some cleansing of your own to reclaim the peak from the cultists.

I found this candle on one of the peaks, and hence decided to label this shot as 'A Candle for the Fallen'. A last candle lit under a setting sun for all those who have fallen and been lost.

By fire be purged!

I've finished my mace! Two xpacs behind, but no matter, I'm still very happy to have made it. :D

I'm tempted to use it in randoms, probably while healing and just run up to mobs and smack them with it, though the drop in stats is quite significant so perhaps I shouldn't if I want to maintain a (reasonable) level of contribution to the group. Perhaps I'll use it on the occasions I get overgeared tanks so it's safe to have the drop in spellpower.

I'll be continuing to go into Molten Core both for rep (Hydraxian Waterlords and Thorium Brotherhood from the Lava and Fiery Core turn-ins) and to finish off my t1 set (The Cenarion robes just will not drop! I only need the Robes and Boots now.). I'm quite tempted to head in on my Pally now, though, and try to get the pieces for Thunderfury, as that weapon is awesome. I've seen some tanks use that in randoms and it looks like a lot of fun. We shall see though!

Here's a bit of interesting information from WoW Wiki on Sulfuras:

Sulfuras is the mighty weapon of Ragnaros the Firelord. The weapon never leaves his grasp. It is composed of flaming red elementium and etched from end to end with intricate runes that seem to move like flowing lava across the weapons surface. Sulfuras is covered with many vicious pikes of varying sizes, each white hot and surrounded by the distortion of shimmering heat.

When a creature is slain by Sulfuras, its body is consumed by intense flame and effectively disintegrated, leaving behind only a pile of ash. The heat and pressure of this effect solidifies the ash into a hard, dark, crystal. This crystal is known as an eye of Sulfuras and is used by Ragnaros' followers in ancient rituals or to craft special weapons such as sulfuron hammers.

How to fully opt out of RealID

I noticed this article on WoW.com, it tells you how to fully opt out of RealID (and also how to customize it if you do want to use it). Article here. I'm very glad they posted this!

Quoting the article:

This is a guide for how to truly opt out of this feature...

To be clear, everyone who does not have a parentally controlled account has in fact opted into Real ID, due to a security flaw. Addons have access to the name on your account right now. So you need to be very careful about what addons you download -- make sure they are reputable. In order to actually opt out, you need to set up parental controls on your account. This is not an easy task. Previous to the Battle.net merge, you could just go to a page and set them up. Done. Now, you must set up an account as one that is under parental control. Once your account is that of a child's (a several-step process), your settings default to Real ID-disabled. Any Real ID friends you have will no longer be friends. In order to enable it, you need to check the Enable Real ID box.

Setting up parental controls:
Go to the appropriate battle.net site for your region. (That link should take you there.)
Push the Create or Manage a Battle.net Account button.
Log in as normal.
Click on Parental Controls, which is an option listed under Manage My Games. (And, if you're like me, you'll be sad that you are still not in the beta.)
Choose the No - Setup Parental Controls button.
Fill in your info as both the child's account and your own. (Why they make this distinction, I don't know. Parental controls always used to be an option for adults to manage their own game time.)
You will receive an email. You need to save this email, because the link in there is the only way to get to the parental controls. Otherwise, you have to make Blizzard resend it. Click the link to get into the controls.
Save Settings and then be told it will take up to 30 minutes to go into effect.
That is how to opt out.

It says that it's not easy to set up parental controls, but it only took me about 5 minutes total to do all of that, so really not that bad. It looks like it works well - logged in to test it and I didn't see any of the RealID setup settings in the Interface menu or the Social tab. Seems to have done the trick! 


I think it would be much better if this was standard across all accounts (not just in parental controls); what would be best is an Opt-in setup where you're automatically out of RealID until you select that you want to activate it. That would be the safest for privacy, really. At least Blizz listened to the community and decided to cancel their plans for using RealID on the forums.