This is part 2 of my Icecrown “tips” series; part 1 (Lower Spire) is here. These are literally all just off the top of my head as I sit here – so I may have missed some. If you have any others, please let me know and I will add them in (and credit you, of course).



• Keep Rejuv up on as many people as you can, particularly on Stinky, who has a continuous damage aura.

• DBM (or similar) should give you a countdown to Decimate. Hit Barkskin just before Decimate goes off.
• Make sure the tank has HoTs going into Decimate; I Swiftmend him immediately and then focus on picking up others in the raid.
• If you can, put full HoTs on the tank who is temporarily unhealable, so that when the debuff lifts, he immediately gets healed.


Festergut



• We put some/most of our healers in melee range so they don’t have to run to get spores (and stop casting); but as a druid, you can easily run and heal, so being out at range is fine. Better you running around than a ranged DPS (as this fight is a DPS check).
  
Even so, during the third inhale, you’ll want to stand and heal the tank, so make sure you don’t have far to run to the designated spore point.

• If you are raid healing, this is what I do:
  

  • First inhale: Rejuv as many people as possible, WG the melee.

  • Second inhale: HoTs on the tank; WG to cover limited raid damage, spot heal if required
  • Third inhale: Full HoTs on the tank (I roll a 3 stack of Lifebloom), WG the melee, Nourish the tank between HoT refreshes. Pre-HoT the next tank before the switch.
• When Festergut begins to cast Blight, hit Barkskin, and begin Rejuving the raid again (return to first inhale).
• Resurrecting someone can be dicey if they won’t get at least 2 lots of Inoculated; other healers can protect them from dying during Blight, or you can wait to rez them until just after Blight, so they get a full set of Inoculated. Communicate with your other healers on this – and don’t forget to give the person Mark of the Wild when they pop back up.


Rotface



• If you are targeted for Mutated Infection, hit Barkskin to help mitigate the damage as you run over to the ooze kiter. Throw a Rejuv on yourself, too.

• Depending on your assignment, try to keep HoTs up on the MT and on the kiter; if the kiter goes out of range of heals momentarily, or the healers have to move briefly, your HoTs will act as a buffer on those tanks until everyone can reposition.
• Make sure you can see Mutated Infection on your raid frames. As soon as it pops up, I cast Regrowth on the victim as they run out; the direct healing will land at a good time to counter the first chunk of damage, and leave a small HoT on them to help to top them up while they are taking their ooze over to the kiter. This is personal preference; you may prefer Rejuv/Swiftmend – whatever works best for you.
• When Rotface starts doing his Slime Spray ability, hit WG on yourself, and it should pick up anyone in range of the boss who took a small amount of damage from Slime Spray (hopefully they got out after a tick or two!)


Professor Putricide



• I specced into Imp Barkskin for this fight (mostly), as there are a lot of predictable chunks of damage that he throws out, and that little bit more damage reduction can save you. For example:
  

  • Glued to the spot by an ooze, and the boss throws a slime pool under your feet (more common than you might think)

  • Malleable Ooze is thrown towards you and you only spot it at the last second – Barkskin to try to save yourself.
  • Final phase – a bit more damage reduction means surviving longer and keeping the tanks up longer.

  If you have space in your spec (ie, if you’re haste capped and can afford to spend the points), I recommend it, at least while you’re still learning the rhythm of his abilities, and the healers are getting used to the damage in Phase 3.

• Revitalize returns energy to the Abomination (see post here for more information). This may help you smooth out the fight by guaranteeing the abomination always has enough energy to slow the oozes, plus do damage as well. You may like to consider a talent build that has Revitalize in it.
• If you have Revitalize, keep Rejuv up on the abomination, and cast WG through it. You’re going to fall down the healing meters a bit, but giving energy to the abom will help the fight go more smoothly if you’re still learning it.
• If you are targeted by the green ooze (and rooted to the spot), or you are running over to stack on the person who is, hit Barkskin just before the ooze reaches its target, to mitigate some of the explosion damage.
• Try to Rejuv as many people as possible before that explosion, so they are healing themselves as they go flying across the room.
• If you’re targeted by the brown ooze, Barkskin, Rejuv yourself, run – and be ready to go to cat form and sprint if it gets too close to you.
• If it targets another person, put full HoTs up on them before they run away, so that if they run out of range of other healers for a few seconds, they still have HoTs as a buffer.
• In the final phase:
  

  • Barkskin yourself.
  • keep Rejuv up on the tanks at all times; if they die, Putricide heals for an insane amount, and it will likely mean a wipe.
  • be ready to Swiftmend/NS+HT the tanks.
  • blanket as much of the raid with Rejuv as you can, to try to counter the raid damage.
  • Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation will heal the raid faster, but you’ll be covering fewer people – so you may prefer only to use it if you are working with a second druid. Coordinate with your partner on which groups to cover. For example, I’ll cover 2&3, you cover 4&5, and we overlap on tanks. That way, almost the entire raid should have Rejuv up.
  • if you don’t play with a second druid, you may find RR to be a hindrance because you can’t cover as many people, to counteract that huge raid damage.
  • if you can, get extra HoTs up on the tanks to give them a buffer. In particular, find out what the tank rotation order is, and try to pre-HoT the next tank in line, so that when he takes the boss, he already has heals ticking.
  • WG through the melee if you have any spare GCDs.
• Mana shouldn’t be much of an issue in the early phases, as there isn’t too much damage that can’t be avoided. So I can usually afford to toss my Innervate to someone else. If you find you are having problems with mana, particularly in the third (blanketing) phase, consider having your Idol of Awakening handy, to swap in for Phase 3.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Casual Kingslayer
• Resto Druid calculator!
• Power Auras exports – Ruby Sanctum

I recently updated my Guides section, and added a “Strategies and tips” section – for boss guides, encounter tips, and general tricks that druids may find handy to know.

I won’t be posting full strats for the Icecrown encounters; plenty of other sites do that, and they do a fantastic job of it, too (I recommend StratFu and Tankspot). Instead, I wanted to go over some druid-specific tips for Icecrown – things that I have found really useful to employ.

I’ll add this to the Guides page, and later, when the next wing is released (and Arthas is down) I’ll update it. And, hopefully, I’ll be able to update the posts with heroic tips as well, if there are specific tricks to help beat heroic mode. If you have any little tips to add, please let me know, and I will edit them (with credit of course).

As always – this is not a strict “you must do this” guide – your guild may use entirely different strategies, and these tips may not apply.



• You can’t use Barkskin during Bone Spike Graveyard.

• During Bone Storm, hit Barkskin, toss a Rejuv on yourself, and stay put to keep healing (just avoid fires, obviously). His Bone Storm damage is not very strong on normal mode, so there’s no need to run.
• We stack right up behind him, on his hit box – if your guild does this, right click on the boss and start tree-punching for some Omen procs, if you need the mana.


Lady Deathwhisper

This is mostly a reactive healing fight, so there isn’t much to say, other than:



• Decursing is top priority.

• Toss Wild Growth onto someone when they get the Death & Decay debuff; you should hit all victims that way.
• In the final phase, if you see a ghost aggro on you, Barkskin and run (kitty sprint if you have to). If you’re missing health, or if there is a badly timed D&D or other damage from the boss, you can’t afford to be hit by a ghost. Kite him until he de-spawns.


Gunship Battle



• Stand on the very edge of your “home ship”, between the cannons. As long as the boarding party stay fairly close to the edge of the enemy ship, you will be able to heal both ships at the same time.

• If for some reason you can’t afford to move much – for example, if you are assigned to the tanks and need to stand still to cast Regrowth/Nourish a lot – you can stand still and take rockets – just hit Barkskin and throw a Rejuv on yourself (beware of doubles or triples though!). Yeah, it’s a bit noobish to stand in the Bad Stuff(tm) but if it means you’re going to save someone, I consider it the lesser of two evils. Plus, on normal mode the rockets don’t hurt much anyway.


Deathbringer Saurfang



• Don’t ever battle rez someone who died from Mark of the Fallen Champion! They will rez with the debuff still, die immediately, and heal Saurfang again.

• In the early stages, I find there is little healing to do, so I often help DPS the blood beasts. Just don’t let them touch you!
• By hanging back on the healing in the early stages, I have full mana later if there are marks building up and things get a bit frantic. It also means I can easily give my Innervate away.
• If you are arranging in advance to give your Innervate to someone, make sure they pick a position in range. You don’t want to have to move to go Innervate them, or you may give the boss more Blood Power.
• If you have been assigned a Mark victim to heal, put full HoTs on that person. I keep Lifebloom rolling on them, and use Nourish if they are dipping low.
• Try to keep at least a Rejuv on the other victims, to help your other healers. I Nourish if I see anyone dropping low, but don’t forget your assignment (if you have one).
• Save Barkskin for if you get Mark on yourself.
• If you see a Blood Beast running for a ranged player, you can use Entangling Roots to hold it in place until it can be nuked down. Just don’t root one next to a player, or it will turn and hit them, which gives Blood Power to Saurfang.
• If you aggro a Blood Beast, hit Nature’s Grasp and leg it. Hopefully it won’t touch you, but if it does, it will only get one hit off before you escape to a safe distance.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Casual Kingslayer
• Resto Druid calculator!
• Power Auras exports – Ruby Sanctum

After an absolutely flawless attempt (but a 4% wipe to her enrage timer), we had two attempts left at Blood Queen on 25. It was looking good – we just had to tweak things to squeeze a tiny bit more DPS out.

We wiped due to an unlucky double-melee pact (yuck), and everyone ran back. One attempt to go. I had a soulstone that had gone unused, so I popped up, ran to the safe side of the room (very important, as I’m SO nervous about pulling and wasting attempts), and rezzed a few people to save them the run back.

Aussie lag attacked. I should have anticipated it, and I’m kicking myself over it. I rezzed a shaman, and for a split second, the game/server registered that he was on the Queen’s side of the room before he teleported to where I was standing.

+combat, +death, no more attempts for the week.

A few moderately naughty words on vent from me (mostly along the lines of “I am quite certain I was on the safe side of the room”), and a lot of disappointment from everyone else. I felt absolutely horrible.

Afterward, the people who had seen it happen claimed they thought the shaman had ankhed, because it looked for all the world to them as though he had jumped up on the spot, right near the boss (you’d have to be pretty stupid..!). But no – he hadn’t “popped”. I had rezzed him, but the lag had him stand up on the spot and then reappear at my feet. In that split second, the boss decided he was close to her, and we lost our attempt.

I should have realised it would happen. We now have a new policy – no rezzing, just run back.

It wasn’t really my fault, others vouched for the fact that I was well inside the “safe area”, but I felt like an absolute dog for the rest of the night – wasting our last attempt when we are working on server first. I got a lot of nice whispers telling me not to worry about it.. but I still felt guilty and angry and stupid.

One of the really horrible downsides to limited attempts – accidents and lag robbing you of tries. Blah.

Sorry Inex, we’ll get her this week, I’m sure.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Casual Kingslayer
• Power Auras exports – Ruby Sanctum
• A 10man raider in a 25man guild

Thanks go out to Deku of Executus(EU) for this little gem, via Elitist Jerks:

Thought I’d link a WOL from our 1 shot of PP last night. (seeing as the old resto pve thread is closed I’m assuming this is the new one to post stuff like this in)

World of Logs – Real Time Raid Analysis

As you can see the benefits from Revitalize are quite amazing, considering this was only from 1 attempt and all we did was make sure it had a rejuve active at all times. Our Abo controller had so much energy compared to last week when we didnt spec for it.

Considering the slowing debuff costs 50 energy, gaining 504 just from Revitalize is quite significant.


If you’re not familiar with how the Abomination works, it’s more like a possess, or a costume, rather than a vehicle or a pet. You become the abomination – you don’t control it as a pet, or jump into it as a vehicle. You touch stuff on Putricide’s bench that you probably shouldn’t touch – and next thing you know, you’re a big, hulking.. thing.

When you become the Abom, you have an energy bar. That energy bar is replenished when you gobble slime puddles, and then you use the energy to slow down the oozes that chase your raid members around. So, basically – you need as much energy as you can get, so you can help your raid members out as much as you can.

What the above quote has highlighted is that not only can the Abom get energy from drinking slime, but also from a resto druid’s Revitalize talent (something I had no idea about). With two Revitalize druids in the raid keeping Rejuv on the Abom at all times, he received 500 energy. The “slow” ability costs 50 – so that’s the equivalent of 10 “free” slows over the course of the fight. That’s quite a substantial amount.

We’ve killed Putricide on 25, but hey, I’m always for making things easier – so I intend to go back to Revitalize for this fight. Mostly though, I wanted to share with those of you who might not have him down yet – it could be something that helps you out. I know that in the beginning we had some times when our Abom controller didn’t have enough energy to be able to slow the ooze – and it can create chaos. This little tip may help smooth things out a little.


My “Icecrown spec”

I don’t like giving up the “tried and true” specs, but on the other hand, I’m not afraid to try something a bit different, even if it will reduce my healing slightly, if it will benefit the raid overall.

I’m going to make my second spec something like this:



Wowhead Talent Calculator 14/0/57


It’s not cookie cutter, it’s sits me below the haste soft cap (currently), and it might make some people cringe.


If you’re wondering about Imp Barkskin – back in Ulduar there were some high-end raiders who used it for hard modes and novelty fights, so I am always open to the idea of using it (if only temporarily) on any fight where a bit more survivability can make all the difference. With fights like Festergut and Putricide, where there are predictable or timed bursts of big damage, I love it.

Revitalize: I’ve wanted it back for a long time, and Putricide is my window. I didn’t want to give up my beefier Barkskin, so I decided to drop Living Seed. I wanted LS for times that I have to spam Nourish on someone; particularly Festergut and Putricide (phase 3) when tank damage is huge. We had a heartbreaking 0.000something% wipe on Putricide when we lost a healer and then a tank died, and suddenly he was back at 900k. Ugh. So I hesitated over dropping Living Seed.

But, thinking about it… there were far more times that a non-slowed ooze killed us or caused enough chaos to rattle us and eventually cause a wipe. I doubt that Living Seed would make or break the fight, but giving the Abom 250 energy could certainly make attempts much smoother.

However, I didn’t want to drop Nature’s Grace, because I do find it helpful during those SPAMSPAMSPAM moments when you have to save someone’s life. Ideally I would have both NS and LS.. but I decided LS was the more situational, and less likely to save the raid in an emergency.


Glyphs

I’ve taken to carrying a bunch of our main glyphs around with me, so that I can reglyph as needed. Sometimes our staples aren’t particularly effective on some fights. I’m not glued to the Glyph of Swiftmend anymore. WG is highly effective on fights where people are generally bunched up, but if they’re not, it can be a bit of a wasted slot. So I don’t really believe we have “must-have” glyphs anymore. It’s easier to just carry a stack of each and reglyph when I need to.

Thinking aloud time:

For Putricide, if I’m going to be Revitalizing the Abom, I’ll take Rapid Rejuv. I was thinking of dropping it for Putricide, to be able to cover more people with Rejuv, particularly in P3. But faster Rejuv ticks on the Abom means more faster energy return, so I might go with RR for now. Plus, fast ticks on people in P3 (especially tanks) is valuable.

Nourish – for the times when I have to Nourish up an ooze victim, and to supplement tank healing, particularly in P3.

Swiftmend – I have actually dropped Swiftmend for most fights; most people would gasp, but having to reapply a HoT is a minor inconvenience in terms of time and mana, and I felt I could get better value from another glyph. Of course, the other argument is that if you SM someone else’s HoT, it’s rude and wastes their time and mana, and throws our their rotation – but if a situation calls for a better glyph than SM, then I do not think I can afford to take the polite option and glyph for someone else’s convenience. Of course,I do try not to SM someone else’s HoTs!

In the case of Putricide, though, having that precious HoT drop off is a bad thing, I feel – when people need Swiftmending on Putricide it’s usually because they need (and will continue to need) a bunch of healing, right now. Ooze victims take continued damage, particularly if he’s a jerk and puts a slime puddle under them, then everyone blows up. I don’t want that Rejuv stripped off when I Swiftmend. The tanks in P3 need Swiftmending frequently – and I definitely don’t want their HoTs stripped off, every tick counts in those final seconds.


So for this fight:

Rapid Rejuvenation – for Abomination energy, reactive/fast healing on spotty raid damage, and quick ticks on the big tank damage in P3
Nourish – for extra healing on ooze victims, and tank healing in P3 (if necessary)
Swiftmend – to make sure precious HoTs are never stripped of people taking ooze damage, slime puddle damage, or debuff damage in P3


And that’s how I’ll be swapping things around for Putricide.

Hope the Revitalize tip helps!

Possibly Related Posts:

• Casual Kingslayer
• Resto Druid calculator!
• Power Auras exports – Ruby Sanctum

Quick update before I head to bed.

Icecrown is a breath of fresh air. I’ve quite enjoyed it, although I do feel as though Lady Deathwhisper is a bit of a zzzfest for healing. Bit spammy. Gunship was much more fun than I anticipated.

We didn’t get Saurfang down, which is disappointing – would have been nice to clear it the first night, but we had a lot of issues with disconnects, and we were a healer down for the fight. Being undergeared (going in with mostly 10 man gear, rather than 25 man gear) and down one healer made it slightly too difficult for us. Hopefully we’ll get him tomorrow though. I’m hoping we can get him, despite being undergeared.. then it’s off to do 10s

But here is the absolute highlight of the evening (and may or may not have attributed to a little bit of time lost on Saurfang attempts..):



Holding up the raid to bounce around as a rocketbear is VERY NAUGHTY.

(But I couldn’t stop laughing)

Possibly Related Posts:

• Casual Kingslayer
• Slayer of Dragons
• Power Auras exports – Ruby Sanctum





General Vezax down: 24 April 2009
. . .
Yogg-Saron down: 7 December 2009


Well done, Inexorable – only 8 months behind



It’s worth noting though that we are now 6/9 Ulduar hard modes in our first 2 nights of raiding, with the new Inex taking just 6 attempts to do Knock, Knock, Knock on Wood. Colour me impressed and excited!

Can’t wait for this week when we can either jump into Icecrown (if it’s out), or try our hand at TOGC together for the first time.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Casual Kingslayer
• Power Auras exports – Ruby Sanctum
• A 10man raider in a 25man guild

When I reformed the guild to do 10s and socialise, I said no more 25s. Weekend PUGs are fine.. but the stress and strain of running a 25man raiding guild is too great, and we wanted to avoid that.

But since then, people started itching for 25s again. Our 25man PUG (part guild, part PUG) has killed Faction Champions in TOGC. The guild got a taste for raiding again, and a ripple of eagerness went through the ranks.

I wasn’t sure. But I didn’t want to pull up my GM boots and flatly deny them. So we put it to a vote. Evidently a lot of people have been wanting to get back to 25s.. and so here we are, preparing for 25man Icecrown..




I’m excited, a bit scared too. It’s no secret that we’ve split and reformed several times. There’s no knowing what will happen this time.. but the enormous support and flood of quality applications is really great. People still see us as a force on the server, I suppose.

Despite having even less free time.. I believe I will blog better while raiding 25s. I always did, I think. I adore 10s, and will keep running them, but I always felt as though 25s were the real meat for me, and without them, it took away part of what I enjoyed writing about – the endgame tactics that I loved exploring, tweaking, and sharing. I’m excited to be getting that back, for my blog.

Anyway – must go – I have a guild bank to cleanup and restock (*glee!*).

Possibly Related Posts:

• Short break
• Wanted: more Resto Druid blogs
• Casual Kingslayer

Last week, Lissanna from Restokin wrote about her view on trash mobs, and why instances need them. I was going to post something on the topic earlier, but I just got back from a great weekend in Melbourne.. and I have Christmas, familiy birthdays, and a few social engagements bearing down on me, argh!


Truth is though, that I do like a bit of chaos and pressure. Christmas time is probably my favourite time of year, because I can really indulge my desire to plan and organise everything. Plus, business deadlines start to close in. It’s funny.. I find that the more work and pressure that I have, the more energy I have, too.


Anyway – I could have just shelved this one because I was a bit late with it, but I did want to write my own take. Better late than never.



Trashless TOC is fine (by itself)


Honestly, I love our trash-less TOC. I don’t think it trivialises the instance or makes it feel boring. I think it is a breath of fresh air – something different. You can get on with things without having to wade through trash first.


But – I don’t think I’d like all instances to be like TOC; it’s only the fact that it’s the only instance of its kind, I guess, that makes it “OK”. If every instance was like TOC, with no trash, then I think things would probably feel a bit cheap and easy.


I agree with Lissanna that trash helps to break up the encounters, and pace things a little. But the problem, I think, is that once you’ve been doing an instance for a few weeks, and you’ve mastered the trash, or you outgear it, it really becomes very tedious to have to clear and reclear each week. It no longer provides a challenge, it’s just an annoying speed-hump standing between you and the bosses. And each week, it becomes more and more irritating to have to reclear it. I believe that in many cases, this stops people wanting to go back, and probably shortens the lifespan of the instance.


I think that’s why we see so many people pugging TOC; because you can just jump right into fighting the bosses. There’s no chronic AFKing on trash, or spending an hour clearing to the first boss and then disbanding because someone had to leave. You can just dive headfirst into the action, no mucking around. I love that. I hope we see more of it.


But, on the flip side, as I said, I don’t think I’d like it to always be like that. There needs to be instances and encounters with trash. If every boss had no trash, it would start to feel a little too easy, a little trivial.


There just needs to be a balance.



Trash that we hated


Naxx: long, winding corridors of pack upon pack upon pack. Packs of cursing and poisoning spiders that made me want to kick puppies. Some novelty in the eye-stalk gauntlet, Frogger, timing the gargoyles properly etc. On the whole – far too much trash.


Sartharion: far too much trash for a single boss.


Hyjal: waves and waves of trash, and if you die at the end of one, you get to start allll over again. Every week you have to clear 20 minute waves of trash.


BT: Supremus’ room: far, far too much to clear. You could skip some of it if you were careful, but it was still far too much trash.


Sunwell: very difficult trash that many guilds struggled to get through to get to the first boss.


Flame Leviathan: fun a few times, while you play around in each type of vehicle; but such a huge area to clear.


Freya: another huge room to clear.


Vezax: a long way to go, then when you get to his room, you have all of those annoying packs of mobs, plus the two big guys. Glad it was reduced a little. Not terribly difficult, just so TEDIOUS.



Author’s note:


RAID-WIDE POISONS AND CURSES: STOP DOING THIS. SERIOUSLY. I absolutely LOATHE these pulls. They serve no purpose other than to make the pulls tedious and miserable for cleansing classes. Stop doing it. I can’t even begin to express my seething hatred for these.



Trash concepts that are good

• Novelties like spider tanks on Mimiron trash

• Gauntlets (as long as they are short)
• Achievements for clearing trash fast (like Freya)
• Novelty mounts (AQ40)
• CC pulls – makes people work together instead of “zerging”
• Mobs that restore health/mana when they die (Kara)
• Reputation (how about adding some fun rewards to buy?)
• Trash epic drops
• Herb and ore nodes, and skins, as incentive for clearing
• Final bosses with no trash – it’s a relief
• Small numbers of challenging packs, rather than long sections of dull packs


I think you either need a small number (say, 2 or 3) of challenging packs, or, if you’re hell-bent on a huge room full of trash, then it should provide a reward for clearing. Nodes, a higher chance of trash drops, achievements, or other rewards – there needs to be a trade-off. I can handle large and boring rooms, if it’s not just a large and boring room, every single week.


Slowing raids down for the sake of slowing them down just makes people annoyed and restless – and less likely to want to come back.



Rewards for clearing trash


One of Lissanna’s main points is that trash rewards raiders even if they don’t kill the boss.


I agree and disagree. It’s true in theory, but I think that these days, trash is less rewarding than it used to be. Sure, there are BOE drops, but often these go to the guild vault, so the players don’t really benefit (at least directly, in a way that they feel glad they came for the trash). I think players need to feel that they, personally, are getting something out of long trash, otherwise it’s just a chore.


I would love to see the return of reputations from raids – with more rewards. Let’s face it, most of the rep rewards in the past have been sidegrades at best – by the time you’ve done enough runs of Instance X, you likely outgear anything that the rep vendor offers you. How about offering things like:


- BOA items
- pets and mounts
- tabards
- more powerful food, only able to be used in that instance
- a way to port to the instance (like the BT neck or Argent tabard)
- novelties, like costumes or single-use items, novelty foods, trinkets


I treasured (and still use) my BT neck. Of course, that was a quest reward – but we could have something similar to the Argent tabard that ports you to the tournament grounds. Food, buffs, perhaps even special flasks that you can only purchase at exalted rep and can only be used inside that instance, or perhaps even cooking or alchemy recipes for buffs that can only be used there (although this may have economic implications – but you get the idea).



Speed things up for old hats


How about selling an exalted mount that allows you to travel through the instance faster than normal mounts? This would make wipe recovery faster, which helps to ease the strain on veteran guilds that are getting jaded after being in the instance for a long time.


Or, even more fun, something like a bomb detonator (with limited charges) so that next time you have to run the frogger bomb gauntlet at Mimiron, you can protect the raid by blowing up the bombs? Or a flag that acts basically as a totem, that you can put down and it gives you +X damage against elementals, so clearing Freya’s room becomes faster and easier?


Basically – items that are a mix of fun, a slight money sink, and most importantly – novel ways to speed up the instance for guilds that have been there for what may seem like an eternity. Anything that helps trash go a little faster will help these guilds feel like the instance is less of a chore.


I also think that we should see more nodes in instances, to reward guilds for clearing everything. Epic gems or frost lotus for the bank is definitely nice compensation for having to clear a room of trash.


I think they’re also introducing raid “dailies”, but I’m not sure of the format of these. I’d love to see raid quests that require you to kill X flowers in Freya’s room or Y iron dwarves leading up to Flame Leviathan – with an emblem and cash rewards for completing them. This would make tedious rooms much more rewarding because you know you’re going to get 26g and an emblem, which then goes towards your upgrades and repair bills. They’d need to make sure people couldn’t just reset and cheat, though.


Of course, I’m not saying that we should throw epics at people just for walking in and killing the first couple of pulls – but I do think that trash should be more rewarding, particularly if it is long.



The balance


Overall, I agree with Lissanna that trash is helpful to set the pace in instances; but I don’t think that it should become such a tedious chore for veterans of the zone. Trash should provide a challenge for a while, but we shouldn’t have to clear long corridors of trash, or waves, or encounter trash that is a massive “gear check” like Sunwell – unless there is a small reward for doing so.


It should:

• be challenging for the new people, but not an impossible bottleneck

• not be tedious and discouraging for farming guilds – can we improve this?
• alternate between large and small, zerg and CC
• add the occasional novelty pulls
• trade off between small/fast packs and longer clears that are more rewarding
• contribute to repeatable quests for emblem/cash rewards


Trash can be fun and rewarding. If I had the choice, I would much rather have fun trash than no trash, certainly. None (if it happens a lot) can be just as boring as too much. Some is good – it just has to be balanced.


I think one of the biggest issues is how boring and discouraging trash can be when you’ve been in an instance for weeks or months – Could this be improved – while still providing an initial challenge, and without trivialising the instance?

Possibly Related Posts:

• Casual Kingslayer
• Power Auras exports – Ruby Sanctum
• A 10man raider in a 25man guild

Despite trying very hard to take a break from raiding, I felt too bad stepping away while we were trying to get Algalon.

We got him tonight after about 2.5hrs total tries.




Feels good. It’s still a shame we couldn’t keep going on 25man; I’m confident that we would have killed him on 25man a long time ago.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Casual Kingslayer
• Power Auras exports – Ruby Sanctum
• A 10man raider in a 25man guild

A friend of mine has been away from the game for a while, and asked me what had changed about druid healing, what he needed to know.

I thought I would post this super-quick “crash course” of how I heal the bosses in TOC. Not fight strats, just bullet points of exactly what I do. Take these with a grain of salt though; remember that I am a 10 man raider, and you may do things completely differently. This is what works for me


Northrend Beasts

Gormok the Impaler

• Keep full HoTs on the current tank and pre-hot the second tank before they switch

• Keep Rejuvs on the melee group
• When your boss mod announces the spell interrupt in 5 seconds, get ready to WG melee. Announce – wait – stomp – WG. Along with the Rejuvs you have on them, this will top them up nice and quickly.
• If someone is hit by fire, Rejuv and be ready to Swiftmend them. They will take more damage the longer they stand in the fire; so if you see them move out immediately, they should be ok without follow-up healing. If they stand in it for a few seconds, you may need to toss them extra healing.
• Toss a Rejuv on a Snobold victim; they shouldn’t take too much damage
• Occasionally you might need to WG people near the Snobold victim since they do some AoE fire damage sometimes.


Acidmaw & Dreadscale

• Keep full HoTs on the tanks as they go into this fight as they may still have debuffs on them

• Keep tank HoTs up, free-heal as people take damage
• Keep an eye on the melee group who may take slime pool damage if they’re not paying attention


Icehowl

• First and foremost, never stand between Icehowl and the big double gates at the back of the room; if he blasts you into them, you may not be able to run away fast enough when he targets you (speaking from experience).

• Keep full HoTs on the current tank and be ready to pre-HoT the other.
• You’ll get to know his timing. As he runs out to stomp and blast everyone to the walls, I run a few steps to make sure I’m definitely not going to the gates, then I toss a WG just before we get stunned. It will help top up the damage while everyone can’t move.
• As you get better at timing this, you can pepper the raid with Rejuvs before he stuns everyone. Anyone at low health just before the stun is going to die – prioritise picking them up before he does that move.
• WG the people who get frozen, since they are likely to be close enough to all be hit by WG.



Lord Jaraxxus



• Pre-hot the tank during the boss chatty time. Keep HoTs up.

• Note: In heroic you may be locked out of healing when the Mistresses are up due to an ability called Mistress’ Kiss. If you get this debuff try not to cast Regrowth or Nourish; but if you do get interrupted, make sure you call this out so your other healers know.
• Toss a Rejuv on anyone who gets Legion Flame – it will cover them for any incidental damage they take while running it out.
• Keep an eye on melee; I sometimes keep Rejuvs on them because they are prone to taking damage if someone with Legion Flame doesn’t run out fast enough.
• For Incinerate Flesh, I Rejuv, Swiftmend, and then Nourish until the debuff drops off (this is the ability that you have to blast-heal the person for a certain amount to kill the debuff, or the raid will take AoE damage).
• When Mistresses are up, watch your frames for a purple squiggle icon. Throw a Rejuv to that person; they are about to be thrown in the air and dumped for fall damage. Wait for the damage, then Swiftmend.
• Spot-heal anyone who takes damage from volcanoes, lightning and whatnot.



Faction Champions

This is a bit of a free-for-all fight, but some people seem to end up “tanking” some of the NPCs. My advice is to keep HoTs on anyone who is being picked-on repeatedly, and also perhaps on any key CCers – you don’t want to lose them. As much as I can, I will toss HoTs around the raid; I use Regrowth a fair bit in this fight. Nature’s Grasp gets used a whole lot, too.


Twin Val’kyr



• Cycle Rejuvs on everyone in the raid

• Extra HoTs to the tanks when you can
• Be ready to Swiftmend anyone who bumps into the wrong coloured orbs.
• If you see a bunch of the wrong coloured orbs heading your way, and you can’t dodge them, Rejuv, Barkskin, and get ready to Swiftmend yourself. (I usually wince as well, I’m not sure if this helps..)



Anub


• Pre-HoT the tank on the pull; keep full HoTs up.

• When the Nerubians pop up, HoT up that tank. If you get aggro, run them over to the tank.
• Toss a Rejuv to anyone who gets the Penetrating Cold Debuff.
• In P2, keep HoTs on the Nerubian tank until they’re dead.
• Be ready to cat+dash if Anub targets you; run to the most distant ice patch (on Heroic, don’t run through it; run around it)
• Spot-heal as necessary, don’t get hit by the little bugs
• In P3, keep HoTs on the tank, and HoT up the add tank when they emerge
• Toss a Rejuv on Penetrating Cold as usual


During Leeching Swarm
This is where your mileage will vary greatly. Our usual setup is Disc priest/Resto druid; the priest handles the raid while I keep full HoTs on both tanks, and toss Rejuvs to the Penetrating Cold victims. Many guilds do it the opposite way, with Resto druids looking after the raid. You’ll need to find what works best for you. The way I do it:



• Keep full HoTs on both tanks, but make sure you keep an eye on the adds; when they’re dead, stop healing the add tank!

• NEVER USE TRANQUILITY.
• Rejuv any Penetrating Cold victims
• Make sure you use your Barkskin if you get Penetrating Cold
• If I (and a few others) get very low, I will usually WG myself, because it will heal us a little, but not a whole lot. The aim is to keep your head above water, but stay as low as you can. I find WG is just enough to act as a stabilising buffer when I get really low, but not so much healing that I interfere with the boss kill.


I know some people out there will think that’s a crazy ass-backwards way to do it, but it works very nicely for us. 10 and 25man strats will vary, as will normal/heroic. This one works really smoothly for us, but may be a complete disaster for you. I suggest reading a few other resto druid strats to see what various other people do, and see which suits you best.

And there you go – that’s how I heal TOC10/TOGC10.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Casual Kingslayer
• Resto Druid calculator!
• Power Auras exports – Ruby Sanctum