Category Archives: Raiding

MoP Pre-raid Resto Druid Gear

Posted on August 14, 2012 | 18 Comments

Mists of Pandaria is just 6 weeks away. Here’s a list of the level 90 gear that is available to you outside of raids. I have only included gear which is ilvl 450 or higher, so it includes gear from heroic dungeons, reputation and crafting.

I’ve included gear without Spirit, but whenever possible you’re going to want to prioritize getting the stuff with Spirit on it.

As always, this stuff is all from the beta, so it may not be entirely accurate, things may be missing or it may change. I’ll try to keep it as up to date as possible.

Head

Item iLevel Location
Hood of Viridian Residue 463 Siege of Niuzao Temple – Vizier Jin’bak
Camouflage Retinal Armor 476 Engineering
Snowdrift Helm 489 Shadow-Pan rep – Revered

Shoulders

Item iLevel Location
Incardine Scarlet Spaulders 463 Scarlet Monestary – High Inquisitor Whitemane
Whitepetal Shouldergard 489 Golden Lotus rep – Revered

Chest

Item iLevel Location
Vestment of the Ascendant Tribe 450 August Celestial’s rep – Honored
Chestguard of Despair 463 Temple of the Jade Serpent – Sha of Doubt
Chestwrap of Arching Flame 463 Siege of Nizuao Temple – Commander Vo’jak
Wildblood Vest 476 Leatherworking
Mistfall Robes 489 Golden Lotus rep – Revered
Nightfire Robe 496 Leatherworking

Wrist

Item iLevel Location
Sudden Insight Bracers 450 Klaxxi rep – Honored
Star Summoner Bracers 463 Shadow-Pan Monastery – Gu Cloudstrike
Clever Ashyo’s Armbands 489 August Celestials rep – Revered

Hands

Item iLevel Location
Wandering Friar’s Gloves 450 Golden Lotus rep – Honored
Rattling Gloves 463 Scholomance – Rattlegore
Vellum-Ripper Gloves 463 Scarlet Halls – Flameweaver Koegler
Wildblood Gloves 476 Leatherworking
Ogo’s Elder Gloves 489 August Celestials rep – Revered
Liferuned Leather Gloves 496 Leatherworking

Waist

Item iLevel Location
Hurricane Belt 463 Mogu’shan Palance – Kuai the Brute
Klaxxi Lash of the Harbinger 489 Klaxxi rep – Revered

Legs

Item iLevel Location
Brambleguard Leggings 450 Shadow-Pan rep – Honored
Darkbinder Leggings 463 Shadow-Pan Monastery – Taran Zhu
Leggings of Whispered Dreams 463 Temple of the Jade Serpent – Lorewalker Stonestep
Wind-Reaver Greaves 489 Klaxxi rep – Revered

Feet

Item iLevel Location
Airstream Treads 463 Gate of the Setting Sun – Strider Ga’dok
Treads of Corrupted Water 463 Temple of the Jade Serpent – Wise Mari
Boots of the High Adept 489 August Celestial rep – Revered

Neck

Item iLevel Location
Skymage Circle 450 Jewelcrafting
Tiger Opal Pendant 450 Jewelcrafting
Pendant of Endless Inquisition 450 Golden Lotus rep – Honored
Temperature-Sensing Necklace 463 Scarlet Halls – Flamereaver Koegler
Necklace of Disorientation 463 Shadowpan Monastery – Sha of Violence
Mindcapture Pendant 463 Mogu’shan Palace – Xin the Weaponmaster
Mindbreaker Pendant 463 Temple of the Jade Serpent – Sha of Doubt
Links of the Lucid 489 The Klaxxi rep – Revered

Back

Item iLevel Location
Pressed Flower Cloak 450 August Celestials rep – Honored
Cape of Entanglement 463 Temple of the Jade Serpent – Liu Flameheart
Cloak of Cleansing Flame 463 Mogu’shan Palace – Gekkan
Cloak of Hidden Flasks 463 Stormstout Brewery – Hoptallus
Sagewhisper’s Wrap 489 Shadow-Pan rep – Revered

Finger

Item iLevel Location
Band of Blood 450 Jewelcrafting
Sorcerer-King’s Seal 450 Shadow-Pan rep – Honored
Triune Signet 463 Scarlet Monastery – High Inquisitor Whiteman
Ring of Malice 463 Shadow-Pan Monastery – Taran Zhu
Viscous Ring 463 Gate of the Setting Sun – Commander Ri’mok
Alemental Seal 463 Stormstout Brewery – Yan Zhu the Uncasked
Vithrak, Gaze of the Deadman 476 Scarlet Halls – Flamereaver Koegler
Leven’s Circle of Hope 489 Golden Lotus rep – Revered

Trinkets

Item iLevel Location
Zen Alchemist Stone 450 Alchemy
Vial of Ichorous Blood 463 Siege of Niuzao Temple – General Pa’valak
Empty Fruit Barrel 463 Stormstout Brewery – Ook Ook
Price of Progress 463 Scholomance – Darkmaster Gandling
Scroll of Revered Ancestors 489 Shadow-Pan rep – Revered

Weapon

Item iLevel Location
Amber Spine of Klaxxi’vess 463 Klaxxi rep – Exalted
Amber Scythe of the Klaxxi’vess 463 Klaxxi rep – Exalted
Firescribe Dagger 463 Mogu’shan Palace – Xin the Weaponmaster
Melted Hypnotic Blade 463 Scarlet Halls – Flameweaver Koegler
Carapace Breaker 463 Gate of the Setting Sun – Raigonn
Greatstaff of Righteousness 463 Scarlet Monastery – High Inquisitor Whitemane
Gustwalker Staff 463 Siege of Niuzao Temple – Wing Leader Ner’onok
Staff of Trembling Will 463 Temple of the Jade Serpent – Sha of Doubt
Je’lyu, Spirit of the Serpent 476 Temple of the Jade Serpent – Sha of Doubt
Inscribed Crane Staff 476 Inscription

Off-hand

Item iLevel Location
Bottle of Potent Potables 463 Stormstout Brewery – Hoptallus
Inscribed Red Fan 476 Inscription

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Posted in Gear, Mists of Pandaria, Raiding

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WoW Drinking Games

Posted on July 23, 2012 | 11 Comments

Looking to spice up your time in WoW a little bit? Why not play a drinking game! I’ve been thinking about all the healer-related derp moments that happen in raids and came up with a lot of things that should drive a healer to drink. I had help coming up with some of these rules, so thanks to Kaleri, Tikari, JoeEgo and especially Walks, who also came up with the idea in the first place.

Healer Rules

Take a drink any time one of the following things happen in a raid or dungeon:

Druid

  • You see your Efflorescence pop up in the middle of nowhere because some ranged dps is standing off by themselves.
  • Your Lifebloom expires and does 100% overheal (tree form not included).
  • You accidentally Innervate a tank or dps.
  • You let Harmony fall off.
  • You shift out of Tree of Life before it’s finished.
  • You die because you are distracted by having to Battle Rez someone.

Paladin

  • Your Lay on Hands is all overheal.
  • You try to cast Lay on Hands or Hand of Protection but you can’t because your target already has Forbearance.
  • You cast Light of Dawn while facing the wrong direction.
  • You die because of Hand of Sacrifice.
  • Any time you come up against a fight where Resistance Aura plus Aura Mastery is useless.
  • You use Divine Plea right when the healing gets intense.

Priest

  • Your Lightwell comes off cooldown and there are still charges left in your last one.
  • Your Prayer of Mending bounces to a pet. If it bounces to a Bloodworm, drink twice.
  • You overwrite another priest’s Prayer of Mending or they overwrite yours.
  • You can’t bubble the tank because another priest has given them Weakened Soul.
  • Your Shadowfiend refuses to attack anything.

Shaman

  • You cast Chain Heal and it doesn’t bounce.
  • You overwrite another shaman’s Earth Shield, or someone overwrites yours.
  • You drop your Spirit Link Totem out of range of the majority of the raid.
  • You drop a Healing Rain and the whole raid moves.
  • You Ankh, only to die again immediately to raid damage.

Multi-class

  • You fat-finger one of your cooldowns.
  • You have to move and interrupt your Tranquility, Divine Hymn or Hymn of Hope channel.
  • You go a whole fight without using your cooldowns.
  • You get aggro on all the adds in a fight and die horribly or need a Pally’s HoP to save you.
  • All of your Intellect/Haste procs go off when there’s nothing to heal.

Of course, I don’t want the non-healers to feel left out, so here are some rules for the rest of the raid.

Rules for Tanks and DPS

Drink whenever one of the following happens:

  • A Paladin bemoans the removal of Divine Intervention.
  • A Priest tells you to click the lightwell.
  • A healer tells you to stand in the ground heals.
  • A healer tells you to use your healthstone.
  • You die with your healthstone still in your inventory.
  • You die because you stood in the bad.
  • You die because you were standing just outside of the PW: Barrier.
  • You have to be Lifegripped out of the bad, or into a stack point.
  • You get out-damaged by an Atonement priest. First drink, then cry.

I also can’t forget the people who like to PVP. I’m sure it makes many people want to drink away their frustrations.

PVP Rules

Drink whenever one of the following happens:

  • A healer steals a killing blow from you.
  • You realize mid-match that you are not in your pvp gear or spec.
  • Your main class of spells gets locked out by an interrupt.
  • A healer successfully jukes your interrupt.
  • You and another member of your team CC the same person at the same time.
  • You CC the kill target. If you cyclone the kill target, drink twice.
  • You get Mind-Controlled, Typhooned or Thundershocked off a ledge.
  • Someone drops a flag because they tried to mount or stealth.

If you play by any of these sets of rules, I’m sure your whole raid or PVP team will be thoroughly intoxicated within a few minutes.

Can you think of any good rules to add?

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Posted in Fun, PVP, Raiding

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Dragon Soul Retrospective

Posted on July 13, 2012 | 9 Comments

We’ve been raiding in Dragon Soul for almost 8 months now. I thought I’d take a look at how enjoyable (or not) the instance was as a healer.

Bosses

My guild cleared the raid on normal within 3 weeks of the instance being released, so I’m mostly going to focus on the hard modes. To give a sense of perspective, I’m including the nerf level the instance was at when we defeated each one.

Morchok

Heroic mode killed pre-nerfs

Morchok was disappointing. The first boss should be the easiest, but not *that* easy. Walking into DS for the first time and one-shotting him was not expected.

In heroic, Morchok wasn’t a whole lot harder, and was certainly easier than a number of the later normal mode bosses. The healing wasn’t particularly difficult, and the Black Blood of the Earth phase was more of an annoyance than a challenge.

Enjoyment factor: 3

Hagara

Heroic mode killed pre-nerfs

Normal Hagara wasn’t tuned to be very difficult, but I did enjoy the components of this fight. I liked that every phase was distinct and that there was a lot of movement (hey, I’m a Druid I like to run around in circles). My biggest problem, which is a complaint I have about most normal modes, was that there wasn’t enough damage to heal.

Heroic Hagara was interesting, but many of the mechanics could be brute-forced. Focused Assault should have made this a 2-tank fight but with enough cooldowns (and a DK) it could be single tanked. Frost phase should have required everyone to run around and dodge Ice Waves but it was easier for all the healers and ranged to stand in the middle and heal through the Watery Entrenchment. The one part of the fight I did find challenging was lightning phase. The damage got pretty intense if the lightning wasn’t quickly chained, and this was definitely a challenge to heal through while learning the fight.

Enjoyment factor: 5

Yor’sahj

Heroic mode killed at 5% nerf

Normal Yor’sahj was a complete bore. It was another fight that we one-shot our first night in Dragon Soul, and to me, it was even easier to heal than Morchok. It’s been a while since I’ve done the fight on normal but I remember there being very little healing to do. I was hard-pressed to even find a time to use ToL and Tranquility because there was so little damage going out through the fight.

The difference between normal and heroic Yor’sahj is night and day. Heroic Yor’sahj is my favorite fight in Dragon Soul. It’s amazing the difference an extra ooze (and a whole lot of extra health and damage) can make. Heroic Yor’sahj is a dynamic fight and required a lot of coordination. It was  really fun and challenging when we started learning it. I remember trying to work out cooldowns for the fight and having 2 groups of CDs to use, based on whether or not purple was up, and calling them out when needed. RNG could make the fight extra challenging as having a red-black-yellow phase followed by a red-black-blue could easily use up all the cooldowns and leave you with none for the next set. I also really loved how each combination required you to heal in a different way. One combo required you to put out as much HPS as possible, while the next required planning and control. The purple ooze was a really nice challenge. Though I never found using ‘tricks’ (like Swiftmending pets) necessary on the fight, I liked how it made me heal differently than normal. Not using Wild Growth is harder than it sounds.

The one downside to Heroic Yor’sahj is that the increasing nerfs really killed everything interesting about this fight.

Enjoyment factor – 9

Zon’Ozz

Heroic mode killed at 5% nerf

I don’t have a strong opinion on the normal version of this fight. It was a step up in difficulty from Morchok and Yor’sahj, but it was rather simple. The biggest difficulties usually came from bugs with the void ball. I did like that the fight involved some dispels, which had been absent through most of tier 12.

Heroic, on the other hand, was a lot more fun. The first phase isn’t too challenging, as long as you had enough people capable of bouncing the void ball without dying. Black blood phase is where things got interesting. There were many adds to deal with and a ton of raid damage going out. What made this part enjoyable for me was that people were spread out all over the room. Where much of the healing in Dragon Soul amounts to “group up in one place and use all your AoE and ground heals,” phase 2 of Zon’Ozz made you do something different. Healers were each responsible for their own group. Since my group consisted of 2 melee, 2 ranged and myself, I got a chance to flex my single-target healing muscles.

Enjoyment factor : 7

Ultraxion

Killed at 10% nerf

This was the epitome of a tank and spank fight and it was pretty dull. The only complication was having to use Heroic Will, and healers got the simplest job of anyone as we didn’t even have to deal with Fading Light.

Heroic Ultraxion, from my healer perspective, wasn’t much different from normal. I don’t have any damage mitigation cooldowns (besides Barkskin, which isn’t really good enough) to allow be to be a soaker, so my job didn’t change. The huge problem with Ultraxion was how inconsistent it was in terms of outgoing damage. The first 3-4 minutes could be easily 2-healed. But once you get to Timeloop, you need 5. The transition from dull to nerve-wracking was jarring.

This fight was interesting for me in one way though. When we were working on this fight at the 5% nerf, it was still a very tough dps check for my raid. This pushed me to put out as much damage as I possible could during the first minutes of the fight when little healing was needed. It was fun to tweak my spec and glyphs in order to do as much damage as possible, while making sure I could still put out as much healing as possible at the end of the fight. A few million damage from a healer could be the difference between a 0.2% wipe and a kill.

Enjoyment factor: 4

Blackhorn

Killed at 15% nerf

I really can’t even remember normal Blackhorn. I have so much time and so many attempts on heroic Blackhorn, I think it has erased all my memories of normal mode. DBM shows I’ve only wiped to this on normal once, so it couldn’t have been too difficult.

Heroic Blackhorn was one of the most frustrating fights in DS for me. First because of how buggy it was. We got to see (or rather not see) invisible monsters one-shoting people on the pull. We had to distinguish between real deck fire and fake deck fire. And I can’t even count the number of times deck fire continued to spawn all over the boat during phase 2, making Shockwaves all but impossible to see and leaving us nowhere to safely stand.

Second, soaking barrages really showed my raid’s flaws in terms of movement. We had so many sub-30 second wipes called after a handful of people died to barrages almost immediately. Blackhorn made it really easy to play the blame game when you ended up dying because you solo-soaked a barrage. Not fun.

The other thing that made Blackhorn less enjoyable was that by the time we got through our kinks in phase 1, phase 2 was a complete pushover. When we killed this at the 15% nerf we really didn’t even need to use our cooldowns properly in order to survive any Roars.

Enjoyment factor: 4

Spine of Deathwing

Killed at 20% nerf

Spine is the first normal fight that provided a healing challenge. The Searing Plasma debuff was something new to worry about and it was fun learning how to deal with.  But once you got beyond that, this fight was very long and repetitive.

Heroic Spine was the most difficult fight in the instance. The healing, even when the fight had been nerfed quite a bit, was very challenging. Combining the debuff, bloods bursting, grips, heavy damage on up to 3 tanks, and the Superheated damage meant the healers not only had to put out enormous healing, but also had to correctly prioritize who they were healing. I actually really enjoy healing this fight, and don’t dislike it as much as a lot of people do. It has it’s downsides – it is too long, and too repetitive, and the difficulty scales up incredibly on the 3rd plate, but I like to be challenged, and this fight challenged me.

The one major thing I would change about this fight is the tendon burn phase. As a healer it’s not something that really effects me, but I sympathize with the dps having to respec and reforge for maximum burst for one tiny portion of the fight. It really disrupted raid continuity.

Enjoyment factor: 7

Madness of Deathwing

Killed at 20% nerf

Like Spine, Madness is very long and very repetitive. The mechanics on normal aren’t terribly interesting. The 4 platforms felt almost exactly the same and that got boring fast.

On heroic, Madness was a letdown. My raid had to work long and hard to get Blackhorn and Spine down, and Madness took about a quarter of the time that Spine did to defeat. Very anti-climactic for the last boss of the expansion. The Impale mechanic was a bit of an annoyance. It seemed like a test of how many damage mitigation cooldowns you could throw at it and as a healer without any, made me feel a bit powerless.

The worst part of the fight for me was that the first 3 platforms were simple, the 4th platform was more challenging to heal, but barring large screw-ups, not too bad. Then the final phase was exponentially more difficult. When learning the fight we were seeing wipes happen around the 12 minute mark. It was very frustrating to have to go through 12 minutes of the fight just to get a little bit more practice on the last phase, which required the most coordination and effort. That said, I do enjoy the last phase of the fight. It’s very stressful to heal – I’m a little in awe of those raids who did this fight at the 5% nerf. After 12 minutes of fighting Deathwing, you’re running low on mana, you’re getting a little tired, and both the tanks and the rest of the raid start taking crazy damage. I felt like the last phase of the fight really pushed me to put out at much healing as I possibly could, pushed the rest of the raid to mitigate as much damage as possible (“use your goddamn Dream!”), and I still breathe a sigh of relief every time we finish the fight.

Enjoyment factor: 5

Atmosphere

I’ve heard many people complain about the recycled environments in Dragon Soul, but I really didn’t have a problem with it. I liked having Wyrmrest Temple as a backdrop for Morchok and Ultraxion, it gave it an epic feeling. Not all the boss areas were as impressive however. Zon’ozz and Yor’sahj were in rather boring areas. I think the two Deathwing fights could have been done much better but at least the environments were unique.

The biggest issue I had with the Deathwing fights was a problem of scale. Fighting on a dragon’s back should have been amazing but the actual fight area and camera angles made it very difficult to tell what was going on. Similarly, Madness was disappointing because you couldn’t really see Deathwing. It didn’t feel like you were fighting an awesome, fear-inducing, world-destroying, dragon because you could only see parts of him at a time – a wing here, a tentacle there. I think it was a huge misstep that we never got to encounter Deathwing in his human form – it’s an amazing model, and we never got to see it. Rades wrote an excellent post about lore disappointments in Cataclysm and how the way Deathwing was presented was one of the most disappointing things. Had Deathwing been better presented (both in character and in the form he takes), fighting him at the end of Dragon Soul would have felt much more exciting. The area where you fight Madness, surrounded by the dragon aspects, is kind of cool when you have the time to look around, but during the course of the fight you really don’t.

Overall

Overall, I’d say that Dragon Soul was okay. There were some disappointing bosses, but there were also quite a few that I found really fun to heal. I like that the environment varied – it was a nice change after Firelands where everything was red (and on fire). The worst thing about Dragon Soul was the nerfs. While I’m grateful for some nerfs (my guild never would have killed a fight like Spine without them), they come too fast and go too far. There were a number of fights – Yor’sahj, Ultraxion, Spine – that I felt we could have killed with just a little more time and effort, then the next level of nerfs came in and they were a cakewalk and much less satisfying to conquer. At 25% we’re pretty much stomping over everything, and next week the nerf is going to 30%. It’s gotten to the point where the mechanics don’t even really matter. One positive thing I can say about Dragon Soul is that I’m not nearly as sick and tired of it as I was of Icecrown Citadel at the end of Wrath. Of course, if you ask me again in another 2 months, that may change.

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Posted in Boss Fights, Observations, Raiding

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Thursday Tidings

Posted on May 31, 2012 | Leave a comment

The last week or two in WoW have been fairly eventful for me, even with so many people distracted by Diablo 3. I haven’t put a ton of time into WoW, but I feel like the time I have spent has been productive and rewarding.

Podcast

Team WaffleFirst of all, I was on the Team Waffle Podcast on Friday night. We talked about the latest changes to Druids in the beta, the new talent trees and how I feel about Heroic resto raiding in Cataclysm. The podcast is now available on the Team Waffle site, or on iTunes. (I’ve also added a new page to my blog under About, with links to all the podcasts I’ve done – Jasyla Speaks.)

Raiding

Glory of the Dragon Soul Raider

After killing Heroic Madness of Deathwing 2 weeks ago, Apotheosis spent the last 2 weeks doing all the meta achievements for Glory of the Dragon Soul Raider. Now all of our raiders have shiny new Twilight Harbingers (though some of our Initiates still have an achievement or two left to get). Getting the meta achievements was a lot of fun. My favourite part was doing the red-green ooze combination on Heroic Yor’sahj – I could practically feel all the healers holding their breath as the oozes hit and our ranged dps started taking 150k Searing Blood hits. We lost a few people, but got through it without too much problem. The worst achievement, without a doubt, was Holding Hands on Hagara. We attempted this a number of times on 25 and it is just so, so buggy. Kurn meticulously placed every raider around the room so the lightning would chain properly, everyone stood where they were supposed to, and then the lightning just wouldn’t chain. It would hop from person to person and then at some point, it would just stop and refuse to hop again. We ended up doing the achievement on 10-man mode which was much easier, but it was annoying that we had to do that.

Next week we’re back to clearing heroics to get everyone all the gear they want and get as many Lifebinder’s Handmaiden and Blazing Drake mounts as we can. I really, really want a mount that looks like Alezstrasza. :)

Apotheosis is still recruiting, so if you are an excellent player (especially a warlock or a shadow priest) and would like to come clear Dragon Soul with us and have a great place to raid in Mists, come apply.

Twilight Harbinger

PVP

I’ve been doing a lot of PVP over the last few weeks. I’ve been doing the arena pass with a Rogue and shadow Priest. We were mostly doing it for the pet and title and last night we finished our 100th game. We ended the tournament with a rating of 1640 which puts us in the top 500 on the arena ladder. I’m happy with that, though 3s always make me feel a little underpowered as a Druid. Looking through the comps of all the teams in the tournament is very telling. Out of the top 2000 teams, the healer class breakdowns look like this:

  • 511 teams have a Priest healer
  • 456 teams have a Shaman healer
  • 341 teams have a Pally healer
  • 100 teams have a Druid healer

What makes it even worse is that 80% of the teams with a Resto Druid have a rating of less than 1500 (while only about 60% of the teams with any other healer are below 1500). The only thing that makes me feel good about being a Druid in the tournament is that my mana bar seems to go on forever while the other healers go oom much more quickly – 95% of the time I give my Innervate to the shadow Priest. But other than that, I feel like being a Druid is a bit of a handicap. Here’s hoping that resto PVP is in a much better place in Mists.

In other PVP news, last night I reached 1800 rating in RBGs. I’m really excited about this one. Knight-Captain Jasyla has a nice ring to it. Now I just need 24 more wins to get my Spiky Pony – I love that mount.

Knight-Captain Jasyla

More Achievements!

Lastly, after months (or years) of spending time roaming around Northrend looking for rare spawns, I finally found Vyragosa and King Krush to give me the Frostbitten achievement.

Frostbitten

Now I don’t know what I’ll do with myself when I’m waiting on arena/BG queues. Maybe fish for a sea turtle?

All the achievements from the last few weeks have put me up to 13380. I’m hoping I can get up to 13500 at least before Mists.

What have you been up to?

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Posted in Achievements, PVP, Raiding, Update

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Saviours of Azeroth

Posted on May 14, 2012 | 7 Comments
Apotheosis kills heroic Madness of Deathwing, 25

This picture was shamelessly stolen from apotheosis-now.com since I was too distracted to take a screenshot myself.

Well, we did it. Apotheosis killed Deathwing. After far too many attempts to get down Blackhorn and Spine we got through the final boss of the instance relatively quickly. On our 8th attempt last night we got ourselves a very clean  kill that took just under 14 minutes.

I’m so happy to have cleared all of the raid content before the next tier came out. This is the first time this has happened for me since hard modes were introduced in Wrath of the Lich King. There are things left to do – make sure all the Apotheosis raiders who missed the first kill get to kill him, finish up the meta achievements and collect mounts – but it feels nice to have conquered all the bosses.

According to GuildOx, Apotheosis is now ranked 250th of all the 25man guilds in the US, which I’m pretty chuffed about.

Apotheosis is still recruiting!

If you want to join us for some Deathwing kills, get a fancy meta drake and have a great place to raid in Mists of Pandaria, you should come fill out an app.

We are particularly looking for Warlocks, Hunters, dps Warriors, Ret Pallies, Shadow Priests and a BearCat, but we will consider any strong dps.

Jasyla, Savior of Azeroth

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Posted in Achievements, Raiding, Update

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Best Swiftmend Targets for Raid Healing

Posted on April 9, 2012 | 4 Comments

The bigger your Swiftmend is, the more your Efflorescence heals for. In order to make the most of Efflorescence, you need to choose your Swiftmend targets wisely. This means not only choosing a target who is grouped up with other people, but also choosing the person in that group who will take the most healing. Some specs have talents or abilities that cause them to take increased healing, so they make the best choices for who to Swiftmend when you’re trying to get out as much group healing as possible.

Here are the classes and specs who receive increased healing.

Constant Increased Healing Effects

Some of the talents mentioned here may not be part of standard specs. Be sure to take a peek at any of these classes pre-raid to see if they have them.

Feral Druid
2 points in Nurturing Instinct will give a feral 20% increased healing effect while in cat form.

Beast Master Hunter
2 points in Spirit Bond makes both the hunter and their pet take 10% more healing.

Paladin
3 points in Divinity makes a Paladin take 6% more healing. This talent is reachable for any spec, but you’re more likely to see Prot and Holy Pallies with full points in this talent.

Assassination Rogue
2 points in Quickening makes a rogue take 20% extra healing.

Restoration Shaman
3 points in Spark of Life increases a shaman’s healing received by 15%. This talent is reachable by all 3 specs, but unlikely to be taken by anyone but a resto.

Warrior
2 points in Field Dressing gives 6% extra healing received. This is obtainable by any warrior spec.

Increased Healing from Abilities

Some classes have abilities that cause them to take increased healing for a short period of time. Add these abilities to your raid frames so you can see when people are taking extra healing.

Blood Death Knight
Vampiric Blood gives the DK 25% extra healing received for 10 seconds. If they have this ability glyphed they will receive 40% extra healing.

Feral Druid
Glyphed Frenzied Regneration makes a bear take 30% extra healing for 20 seconds.

Holy Priest
 With 2 points in Blessed Resilience the priest takes 30% increased healing for 10 seconds after taking damage that is more than 10% of their health.

So the best targets are…

The three on-use/proc abilities listed above will result in the biggest increases to healing done. If people are grouped up near someone under one of these effects, Swiftmending one of them will give you the most bang for your buck.

If these abilities are not up, an Assassination Rogue with Quickening or a Cat Druid with Nurturing Instinct will be your best Swiftmend targets in melee. A Resto Shaman with Spark of Life will be your best Swiftmend target at range.

If you don’t have these, a Pally with Divinity or a Warrior with Field Dressing will do. They only provide a 6% bonus, but it’s better than nothing.

One last thing

I just wanted to clear this up as I still see people who are a little behind the times on how Swiftmend works.

The size of your Swiftmend is in no way affected by the size of the HoT being consumed (or not consumed, because it’s glyphed). It doesn’t matter:
- Whether your Swiftmend target has a Rejuv or Regrowth on them
- How much your Rejuv/Regrowth heals for
- The amount of time left on the Rejuv/Regrowth

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Barkskin in Dragon Soul

Posted on March 6, 2012 | 3 Comments

Damage mitigation is not just for tanks or PVP. Good use of your damage mitigation abilities make for happy healers and happy raid leaders.

Barkskin is a druid ability that is full of win:

The druid’s skin becomes as tough as bark. All damage taken is reduced by 20%. While protected, damaging attacks will not cause spellcasting delays. This spell is usable while stunned, frozen, incapacitated, feared or asleep. Usable in all forms. Lasts 12 sec. 60 second cooldown.

Barkskin

It costs no mana and triggers no global cooldown so there’s really no excuse for not making the most of it.

Here are some ideal times to use Barkskin for each boss in Dragon Soul. Most of these situations are also good times to use Divine Protection if you are a Paladin since the two talents are quite similar.

Morchok

Normal and Heroic: Barkskin should be usable once every crystal phase. The best time to use it is just before a Stomp. If you are one of the crystal soakers, you can time your Barkskin so it is active for both a Stomp and the following Resonating Crystal damage.

Warlord Zon’ozz

Normal: Barkskin is best used during the Black phase on this fight to reduce the damage taken by Black Blood of Go’rath.

Heroic: Use Barkskin at the beginning of the Black phase, as that is when raid damage is highest (as adds are killed there is less damage going out). You could also use Barkskin when you are affected by Distrupting Shadows if it will not be cleansed off.

Yor’sahj the Unsleeping

Normal and Heroic: The ooze combinations on this fight are unpredictable, so it’s hard to time your Barkskin to get the most use out of it. In general, try to use Barkskin whenever the raid damage is heavy. The Red oozes will cause the most damage, so using Barkskin anytime that is up is a good idea. Make sure you’re popping Barkskin after the oozes reach the boss – there’s no damage while they’re travelling to them. It’s also a good idea to use it when Black is active and you have an add hitting you.

Hagara the Stormbinder

Normal and heroic: Main phase – use Barkskin if you are soaking Ice lances. You can also use Barkskin if you are placed in an Ice Tomb.

Lightning phase – Damage during this phase ramps up the longer it lasts, so wait a few seconds before using Barkskin.

Ice Phase – Use Barkskin if you are standing in the Watery Entrenchment (this is a strat you’re more likely to use in heroic mode). If you aren’t in Watery Entrenchment, you shouldn’t be taking any damage so Barkskin shouldn’t be needed (though you can pop it just to be safe in case you get hit by an Icicle).

Ultraxion

Normal and heroic: Use Barkskin on cooldown to prevent as much damage as possible from Unstable Monstrosity. If your Barkskin comes off cooldown just before an Hour of Twilight is going to be cast, hold off and use it after you come back out of the Twilight Realm.

Warmaster Blackhorn

Normal and heroic: In phase 1 use Barkskin whenever it’s available and you are about to take damage from either a Twilight Barrage or a Twilight Onslaught.

In phase 2, use Barkskin before as many Disrupting Roars as you can.

Spine of Deathwing

Normal: There are a lot of good opportunities for Barkskin on this fight. You’ll want to use it as often as possible, when you’re affected by one of the following:

Grasping Tendrils – You will be taking a fair amount of damage while you’re waiting for Deathwing to do a barrel roll.
Fiery Grip – You will be stunned, but you can still use Barkskin.
Superheated Nucleus – This happens when the Amalgamation is about to explode. The whole raid will take significant damage for a few seconds until it dies.

When you’re affected by one of the above and Searing Plasma, Barkskin is particularly effective since any healing on your will be absorbed.

Madness of Deathwing

Normal: During phase 1, there are two times when Barkskin is particularly effective. First, when an Elementium Bolt is going to hit. Second, when Blistering Tentacles are up and you are taking damage from Blistering Heat.

In phase 2, use Barkskin when Deathwing’s health reaches 10% and you are taking extra damage from Corrupted Blood.

Also don’t forget to use Dream during this fight. In phase 2 you want to save it in case you get targeted by Shrapnel, but during phase 1, you can use it whenever you’re taking damage.

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