Yet More to 80…

  One of these is a bit late – Eusko hit 80 a couple of weeks back – but the other is from this weekend. Noobz makes 5 of my toons to 80 now – halfway there! I still have 4 to go, not counting the bank alt, with an aggregate of 43 levels left between them.

Ding! Ding!

  I’ve been remiss with gearing Noobz so far, just made the Ebonwave chest and hands, plus the 60-badge BOE bracers. It’ll come with time, though. I’m going to leave her Demo for the present for a couple of reasons – it allows me to fudge my gear a bit through the boosted spellpower from pet synergy, and I want to grind out the bulk of the Northrend quests with her for money, chanting mats and the tailoring pattern.

  Anyhow, Noobz will be a teritary focus now for gearing – still focused largely on Manch and Eusko – as I’d like to develop a ranged DPS outside of Manch’s Elemental spec and I honestly enjoy playing her. Nobody wants to group with Noobz though… hehe. Just kidding, she’ll be fine on that front.

I got a birthday present!

Doing dailies on the 25th – my 34th birthday – and I had the Borean Tundra Bloodfin (or whatever) one. Cooking daily was Mustard Dogs too, so I plunked myself down, killed some rhinos for my cooking daily, and then went about fishing up the Bloodfin for the fishing daily; after I caught my 5, I started to fly out, saw node of Musselback Sculpin and decided to fish it for no apparent reason. What should happen on my second cast, but a birthday present from the RNG!

Yay, Turtle!

  I could care less how slow it is on land, this was pure awesome.

Ulduar Loot Lists

  It’s still kind of preliminary, I believe, and I would fully expect to see items added to this listing over time as they either are discovered or placed into the database.

  However, if you’re anything like me, you’ve been jonesing to see what kind of stuff is out there for your class and spec, and exactly how it stacks up. One of the websites that I use – it is very similar to sites like Lootrank, except that I can view it through the filters at work – has updated their loot lists now to reflect Ulduar drops.

  The website is HERE.

  Now, a note about using it (if you have never used a site like this before). When ranking stat values, bear in mind that it is calculating each point of a given stat into the absolute value. You must assign your points in appropriate ratios to avoid ridiculously skewed numbers. For instance, as a Tank if you assign a value of 1 point to each of Stamina, Armor, Parry and Dodge, you will have a bad result. That’s because each point of armor will get the same value as each other stat – so you’ll get nothing but the raw +armor pieces dotting the list, be it DPS plate or Tank plate. All you have to do to rectify this is weight high budget items (like armor) with very low numbers, while using low budget stats (such as MP5 or Expertise) in the converse manner and rating them higher.

  Here’s an example from some of the stats that I use when weighting Resto Shaman gear. I weight Critical Strike at a “1.25″, Spellpower at a “1.7″ and MP5 at a “4.25″. Now, consider two pieces:

 

  First, I should say that there are several other stats – but I’m keeping this simple. For the sake of argument, let’s put a Royal Twilight Opal – 9 Spellpower, 3 MP5 – into the gem slot to activate the socket bonus. That means you get these weights:

• Atonement Greaves: 0 crit value, 149.6 Spellpower and 93.5 MP5 value for a total of 243.1
• Eruption-Scarred Boots: 52.5 crit value, 156.4 Spellpower and 12.75 MP5 value for a total of 221.65.

  Of course, there are other numbers that will come into the equation as well, such as haste and stamina; however, despite both being very good pieces, you can see that the numbers are bearing out well in favor of the Atonement Greaves for a Resto build – as they should. Now, if I adjust the MP5 number down to a “2″, my stat weights become imbalanced. The same calculation now shows a score of 193.6 for the Atonement Greaves and 214.9 for the Eruption-Scarred Boots; while our common sense still tells us the correct answer, the stat weights are displaying incorrectly and thus results aren’t showing up like they should. Therefore, you can see the importance of carefully assigning your stat points to the items to achieve a proper end. While a 4.25 value for MP5 may seem grossly overrepresentative compared to 1.7 Spellpower, the larger absolute number present for Spellpower more than overcomes that and thus slots MP5 as a more secondary target – but not too low on the list as to be exclusive.

  Finally, you can work to exclude undesirable pieces from the tables by assigning negative values. As an example, Spirit sucks for a Shaman. In my rankings, I assign a large negative number (I use -4 in my weights) to downgrade all pieces that have that in the item budget. Similarly, I do this with attack power when trying to locate mail pieces, as the +hit, crit, haste and intellect numbers can populate these when they are in fact outside of the desirable sphere. So (as an example), if you want to exclude PvP gear from the rankings, simply assign a -10 to resilience values, or similar.

  At any rate, the lists are out there – browse and enjoy!

Ulduar, how I wish I could enjoy you.

  This weekend saw several incursions into the much ballyhooed Ulduar instance, both in 10-man and 25-man versions. Ooh, so pretty, shiny and new. Lots of wonderful loot to covet, and exciting new bosses to face.

While moderately representative, it's also about on par with the duration of most boss fights.

  Unfortunately for me, and just about everyone else that isn’t in a progression guild that’s about top-10%, this place sucks. I mean flat out, no fun, keyboard smashing and expletive inducing frustration.

  Ulduar has a lot of promise to it. The problem is, it feels like Blizzard missed an entire evolutionary step in progression. Going from Naxx-25 to Ulduar feels like running Mount Hyjal in Kara gear. Sure, you can probably do it with a bit of luck and a raid that is 1 through 25 elite skilled players – but honestly, how many of us fit that bill? Not a lot. Not me, though I’m at least a competent raider.

  There has been a lot said in the runup to this patch that Blizzard did not want to repeat the Sunwell Mistake, introducing an instance that was so ridiculously overtuned that it could not be enjoyed – or even experienced – by the vast majority of players. Well, the Sunwell Mistake is back, and it’s Ulduar.

  Consider, for instance guilds that – for whatever reason – are more or less 10-man guilds. These people might have found their way into a few Naxx 25 PuGs, and there will certainly be OS / VoA 25 gear on their toons, but they will be predominately geared in 10 man loot. That means tanks with 30-32k hp, and DPS likely around 2300-2800 with 10 man buffs. Some of them will be pretty good players, some will be competent players, and a few might even be substandard. This guild is going to have one hell of a time downing much of anything in the instance, and so it will become exclusive against them. Without Naxx-25 gear, they cannot pass the gear checks. Without jettisoning 1-2 “casuals”, they can’t down the bosses. Get top flight gear and make it an elite club if you want to succeed.

  We tried Ulduar-25 this weekend with a crew that has been running full clears of Naxx for 8-9 weeks straight now. Not the kind that sweeps the whole place in 3 hours, but we’re at about 6 or so for the whole thing, and most bosses are one-shots unless something dumb happens, or strategic disconnects bork the raid. Almost everyone in the raid is 0-2 items from the “Epic” achievement, so we’re certainly geared. These are skilled players with gear, and yet it was a total, unmitigated disaster.

  We were able to get Flame Leviathan down on the first try – barely. That fight, strangely enough, was actually pretty enjoyable. I had anticipated that the vehicle fight might be the frustration point for the instance, but it was really quite the opposite. I ran in one of the Siege Engines, as both the driver and later (in 10) as the gunner. It was fun, represented the right amount of challenge, and ultimately left everyone feeling a certain amount of satisfaction.

  Razorscale was a different story. I was part of a run that downed her in 10-man, after about 10 tries. We were able to consistently get her to 60% health or less, and got to the “grounded” phase somewhat regularly. While it was very, very frustrating (we were about ready to call it and move on when we got the kill attempt), at least we got deeper into the fight and were ultimately successful. In our 25 man tries, we probably spent 1 1/2 hours on the fight and never even made it to the grounded phase.

  It sucked, mightily.

  Of course, I know that there is a learning curve. I know that a certain amount of this can be written off to that – but it was ridiculous. You’d spend the whole fight trying to dodge invisible fireballs / dots, hoping that all of your melee didn’t get whirlwinded, or a healer got 2-3 fireballs / chain lightnings in a row or it was curtains. It’s a fight that seems to leave a lot – too much – to dumb luck.

  My guild got Deconstructor down in 10-man on Friday; I was at work and couldn’t go that day, so I haven’t witnessed a successful kill. I know that last night (I was on the Pallytank, as Manch had an ID with MiM), we couldn’t even keep more than 5-7 people up through the first Tympanic Tantrum. Everyone has their own ideas about how the fight should go, and in the end we’re all running all over hell and back. Wipe, wipe, wipe. 

  On the guild run, we made some attempts on Kologarn. What an absolute joy that was, he’ll grab someone and squeeze the life out of them in 5 seconds time unless you DPS them out of it. Of course, He’s shockwaving the whole time (this does hit the gripped peeps, BTW) and blasting everyone with Eyebeams too – but all that aside, we still weren’t able to get anyone out of the grip before that 5-second insta death happens. Hell of a mechanic that you’ve got there, Blizz. If he did nothing else the whole fight but the squeeze and shockwaves,  he’d wipe most 10-man raids due to attrition.

  Of course, with Ignis being all screwy we didn’t attempt him, and unfortunately never got around to Iron Council either. Still, what I’ve seen from this so far makes me not even want to contemplate Mimron, much less anything else.

The Result?

  Blizzard is in a tough spot on this one. The instance is doing a fine job of catering to the top-tier guilds. People who got their Sarth 3D achievements back in December and have been burning for something else to do are no doubt happy, as this is exactly the kind of challenge that they savor. Unfortunately, these kind of raiders compromise somewhere around the top 5% – probably less – of players in the game. We’ve all heard them complaining for months about how content was too easy, and the fine folks at Blizz hand-delivered them something appropriate to their skillset.

  For the next tier of raiding, good guilds with some ability but a little bit of a skill range – maybe only 2-5 of your 25 man crew as “average” raiders, even  - then it’s a very difficult task to complete most bosses. The fights just have such a small tolerance for failure that you can’t afford to take these people. One guy screws up Thaddius’ polarity and he’ll die, maybe take 2 people him at worst, but the fight is doable. One guy misses the gravity bomb icon for 3 seconds and doesn’t move out of range, and it’s a raid wipe. It’s not like Grobby, where you can at least move out of the poorly placed cloud - you’re flat out dead before you know what happened.

  Philisophically, that’s just not right. While Naxxramas certainly needs a level of skill to complete, you could afford to have 3-5 people in the raid in heroic gear or even a bit worse, and still carry them while they got geared up. In Ulduar, anything short of the best is difficult to contend with - in fact, it appears that the instance is even designed to expect all of the raiders to be very close to BIS gear.

  So, that leaves the majority of guilds – and the majority of players – faced with a frustrating reality. You’ll be able to go to Ulduar every week and down Flame Leviathan, and if you’re lucky, you’ll get 1-2 more bosses down. That’s it. Unfortunately, the vast majority of guilds and players in the game – likely 75% or higher – will fit into this category or worse.

  I can tell you that, personally, I don’t play with people who are a bunch of bums. I’m not going to lie and say that I’m a part of one of the top 3 progression guilds on the server either, but the players that I ran 10- and 25-man content with are certainly geared and capable. That said, I probably spent over 180g in repair bills this weekend and got to see Flame Leviathan 10 + 25 down, and Razorscale 10. To me, that’s a bit much for overtuning.

  I know it’s not just me; several friends on the server that I spoke with had the same problems; in fact, getting Razorscale in itself probably put us in the top 10%, especially as we got the Deconstructor too. The top Horde guild on my server managed 8 bosses on heroic; another very good guild managed 9 on 10-man but only 2 on heroic. These are both guilds that have dominated content prior and represent the pinnacle of Progression Guilds - yet with all of their experience, skill and gear, that’s all the further they could push.

  “QQ about it, l2play” is the likely response that I’ll get for this; realistically, though, take a step back and look at where you are as a player relative to everyone else. Terms like “Casual Player” are so often linked to thoughts like “Noob who can’t play” and made to be derogatory. Yet, that’s what most of us are. We play the game well enough that we learn not to stand in fire, pull aggro or bubble the tank. We’re responsible about our gear and understand what stats we should be itemizing and how to setup a talent tree. When it comes right down to it, though, Ulduar isn’t a very conducive place for us, and that’s a problem.

  Has it finally reached the boiling point with all of the big numbers, where the difference between 20k health and 23k health is so small as to be inconsequential, where the size of digits on every side of the combat equation has just risen to the point where it’s a chaotic mess (a la, Might and Magic II)? Is it so necessary to feed the needs of the elite raiders looking for more by turning your second instance of the expansion into something that’s so difficult as to exclude more than half of the game’s players? If Ulduar is tuned to this extent, what happens in the next 1-2 instances for difficulty?

  No, I have to say that it’s overdone. I was not expecting to clear this in the first week by any stretch. What I was expecting was that we would be able to get 3-4 bosses down, and a reasonable expectation that we’d be adding 1-2 a week to that number until we finally work up to the point where we could get Yogg-Saron in about two months’ time. Maybe that will still be the case, maybe the learning curve is less extreme than my initial perception would make it out to be. Maybe there are a number of issues with the instance that are in the process of being hotfixed (Ignis?) and that will ultimately make the transition run more as expected.

  At any rate, I feel like it is too steep for what should be the SSC / TK equivalency for raiding. You want it tougher? That’s why there are hard modes, and when you do them all, you can epeen around on a nice proto-drake with a wicked fast speed boost. Everyone will know you’re the man. For the rest of us, though, it’s pretty damned exclusive content, and a worrisome portent for things to come. I don’t want to wait until The Emerald Dream expansion to see all of the WotLK content, but I’m concerned that, if the next raid follows the same pathing, that might be the eventuality. Getting hung up on this stage of raiding for an entire year, however, is not something that I’d be looking forward to.

  I’m sure that everyone has a different experience. Likely, most everyone got Flame Leviathan down. Beyond that, I’m curious what the numbers are. I’d bet that some people, like Drug, got through half of the bosses or more. Others may well have hit the wall on Deconstructor or Razorscale.

  What’s your opinion of Ulduar? Too hard? Too easy? Too unforgiving? Too exclusive? I’m curious where the WoW community at large stands on this one…

The Slow Grind to 9×80 Continues…

Pallytank reporting for duty!

  After a week or two of focus on Eusko, I now have my 4th toon to 80. He’s slotted in as a tank for me, and there is actually a very good selection of gear out there to deck out a fresh 80(for the enterprising). Fortunately for me, I did have the resources available to me that I could have decent gear waiting for him at the ding (as I said a few posts back), so I was fortunate enough to step right into both Naxx-10 and -25 on his first weekend at 80.

  With the gear that I had (and without Kings, but with Devotion Aura up), I was at just about 25k armor and health right off the bat. Raid buffed, I was over 33k health at times in 25 man. I also managed to be defense capped (though, not by much) and post a combined parry / dodge of about 35% (up to 38.5 now). Sure, these aren’t that kind of stats that say “go tank Patchwerk”, but they’re certainly sufficient to be a functional tank for raiding and well above what is needed for heroics; if my experience over the weekend (VoA 10, Naxx 10 + 25) was any indicator, Eusko looks to be off to a good start towards becoming a very viable tank. Really, the only thing that I felt was not keeping up on the runs was threat, but that will come as gear improves.

And this impacts what?

  So, with Eusko moving into viability as a tank, where does that leave Rib? I’m once again underwhelmed at the changes to Druid tanking. It’s something that I’m going to have to test out against a known quantity to gauge exactly where I stand; to that end, I’ll be going back into Heroic Sethekk Halls again shortly to see how different the feel is from pre-patch.

  Assuming that things play out as expected, and soloing Anzu isn’t quite as comfortable as it used to be, then I have a decision to make with Ribby. He’s going to be a dual-spec character for sure, but the odd question about it right now is: will Feral be one of them? Rib has been Feral more or less forever, but I don’t much enjoy Cat DPS, to be honest – so if the Bear isn’t cutting the mustard it may be time for gogo Space Chicken. Rib has *never* specced Moonkin, but the spec and playstyle look to be fun enough that I think I could enjoy it; short of totems, the playstyle looks to be very similar to Elemental Shamans in terms of the simplicity. Keep your DoT up, pew pew the nukes in between. Add in that the synergy in gearing with Resto is not too bad, and that my ultimate role for Inyaki (well, in 16 more levels) is to tank as well… let’s just say that the field test is going to be important here.

Status: the Quickie

  Outside of finally getting the Paladin to 80, I’ve been somewhat slow about actual alt leveling this week. However, I did manage to bang out 64 on Inyaki and 71 on Zuggzug in a short amount of work; what does that means to me? 49 levels left (aggregate) before everyone who isn’t a bank alt is 80. It seems like so much work still to go when I look at the individual characters, but when I add it all up and see that the number is now below 50 – and almost 1/3 of that balance can be attributed to a single toon – it suddenly seems much closer. I think that a solid weekend of work could probably cut 5 more levels off that figure, minimum; while I’m hesitant to try and guess exactly when I might be able to realize the 9×80 goal, I think that somewhere around late June – early July might be reasonable. I just don’t have much more than about 3 or 4 hours (at best) to put in for all of my needs on most days, and sometimes less.

  One very positive note, I was able to obtain the Tunic of the Artifact Guardian from Malygos-25 last week. When I was first looking over the loot tables for WotLK back in November, I can remember looking at the numbers on this piece and thinking “wow, that’s awesome. I wish I could get that someday, but I probably won’t be able to.” Well, my someday arrived, and I’m thrilled! The only stinker is, I never bothered to get my 7.5 Legs for Resto, so I can’t use it at present unless I want to break my 4-piece set bonus (I don’t!). Hopefully, we get some time in on Naxx-25 this week and I can acquire those. The fact that it’s a chestpiece is a good thing for my Elemental set, though, as the set pieces that I had there were the shoulder, legs and gloves. I need only acquire a headpiece for Elemental and I’ll be able to work out the 4-piece bonus there as well.

  Now, let’s talk maces, Kel’Thuzad…

3.1 and Early Observations

  I’m at a disadvantage to a lot of people here since I haven’t experienced any Ulduar yet. We were set to go (and by “we”, I mean myself along with the Aussies) on the night after it all dropped. Unfortunately, all of the issues accordant to a new patch interfered with that cunning plan, since Blizz had to institute some server “down time” over 2+ hours during what would have been the core of our raiding time. So, it looks like Saturday night / Sunday morning will be my first experience there. I guess that the upshot is, several of the bugs will probably have been worked out by then, so it should be more enjoyable.

  I did dual-spec Manchego. I’m a bit low on absolute dollars presently after the resources I poured into Eusko – but I’m fairly happy with what I got. I’ll need to fiddle with it a bit more, and the item manager tool will certainly make it more expedient – but it has the feel of a very handy upgrade to the game.

  I really haven’t been able to do much more than my respecs and a little bit of grinding in the interim, and probably won’t get much in until the weekend. A few things that I have noticed:

• The additional glyphs that were introduced are (overall) pretty useful, and give a lot more options for customization that the previous lot offered, as they really fell into a “cookie cutter” selection for most class / spec combos.
• The redesign of talent trees has been great; notably, I’ve seen a lot of cases where the reduction of a 5-point talent down to a 3-pointer has offered the flexibility to spend into areas where I might not have before. For instance, taking Restorative Totems down to 3 points means that I can place points into Ancestral Awakening without compromising anything that I had previously talented into. For my Paladin, baselining Kings and reducing One Handed Weapon Specialization + Ardent Defender to 3 pointers means all kinds of options.
• One neat little tidbit that was sort of under the radar: Siphon Life has been removed as a Warlock spell. Now, the talent means that Corruption ticks will grant 40% of their damage back in health. Once again something that I haven’t had a chance to test, but I’m pretty sure that Felguard / Affliction grinding just got stupidly easy, and the downtime on the spec is likely near zero. If that wasn’t enough, Mana Feed is now a 1-point, 100% match. The 4 1/2 levels I have left should go by at crazy speeds. Heck, I can even leave Cleave on the whole time and not worry about the mana drain anymore.
• Not that I noticed much downtime before, but the ramp-up in self healing and DPS for Blood DKs is noticeable. I’m more or less a Rogue in plate armor that can shift into tanking form – and with a constant health regeneration dynamic that means chain pulling is ridiculously easy. Once again, it’s questing limited only by the speed at which you can kill people. I can’t remember the last time I had to eat / drink with the DK.
• Given the state of mana regeneration, I think I’ll shift the Mage back to a Fire / Arcane spec and see how it goes. While I’m sure that this will make some of the harder one-on-one combats more difficult (elites, specifically), grinding of regular mobs should move along at a fast enough clip that it makes up for it. We’ll see how it goes, I may wind up back in Frost after all.
• I don’t know if you’ve seen one yet, but that Turtle Mount is made of awesome.

Feel the awesome. Go ahead, drink it in.

  Now that you’ve seen one…

  I know of two people on the server who have one so far, though I’m sure that there are more since I’m not online for prime time. One of them is the Main Tank from the Aussie guild, and he got his in about an hour of work. I should be so lucky… At any rate, I’m leveling my fishing. Now.

  Weekend plan is to get feet-wet in Ulduar, maybe get a boss or three down. Hopefully in between, I can get the fishing skills up (311 currently, though that means only 44 more points before I can hit Northrend with the pole + lures) and maybe bang out 1-3 levels on alts.

Patch 3.1 Going Live?

According to this Blue Post, it might be tonight. Here I was, thinking that there would be another week or maybe even two before it drops – and I still kind of hope that’s the case – but we might be on the eve of it all here.

Myself, I’ve certainly reached the point where the current content is more or less mastered. I haven’t downed Sarth with 3 Drakes yet, and Malygos is still a PITA on a regular basis – but it’s to the point where these fights are won, every week. This last week, I was able to collect the maximum number of heroic badges by clearing Naxx 25, VoA, OS and Maly. It’s more or less on farm – I don’t even feel guilty anymore about not using flasks when I heal, since my gear is more than adequate for content.

  So why do I want it to stay status quo for a week or two? Mostly, it’s because I still have some unfinished business. 8 times Manch has been there for a kill on KT-25, and he’s now dropped every item on his loot table except my goddamned mace. It’s even funnier because I’ve had a flag on this one since the first kill that the mace was tagged as my one “Priority Loot” piece for the instance, so I’m guaranteed to get it when it drops. *If* it drops. Sigh.

  I want to get my alts in more, too. This last weekend, I pushed the Pallytank through all of Naxx-25 except for KT (and would have stayed for KT if I knew that the effing mace shenanigans would continue). As I’m running on an alt, I more or less get tablescraps for drops – but I was still able to get a few very nice pieces. Even better, there were about 4-5 other pieces that dropped and were taken by the actual Pallytank, so if I run it again then it’s likely me who gets those drops. I’d like to have geared into at least a little bit of versatility by the time we really get into Ulduar so that I can switch out from time to time.

  Fortunately, some of that will get alleviated by dual speccing; Elemental pew pew action should be a great change of pace once in a while, or even on specific fights here and there. How much fun would it have been all this time to swap out to DPS for Thaddius, Maexxna, or some other fight where the healing load is lighter?

  No, what I’m worried about is opportunity. We’ve all run the same content so much since November that it’s starting to feel like Karazhan used to – played out. Still, it’s an essential part of the gearing chain. I don’t want to be “That Guy” who steps into Ulduar raids with substandard gear and wants the raid to gear me up. Similarly, I don’t want to be forced into terrible PuGs with all of the lackadaisical idiots who are still running Naxx-25 because Ulduar is just too tough for them to handle. Maybe we’ll still set a night aside for a full Naxx-25 clear, that’d be absolutely dandy. Maybe not, though – and I think I may be a sad panda about that because, for all of the monotony of the same run over and over, Naxx has a damned nice loot table to it that I’d like to enjoy for a bit longer – at least until I’ve managed to get 2-3 more toons competently geared for Ulduar.

I guess we’ll find out in a few short hours, eh? Hopefully the damn thing works before I have to go to work at 5:00 pm.

Alright, so…

I’ve finally put up a decent but brief little bit about myself in the tabs above, in case anyone really wants to know. Yes, there are pictures. I’ve tried to update my character write-ups a bit recently too, since they were initially written in BC when 70 was the level cap. Just a little housecleaning that needed to be done!

Another one approaching 80…

  Been grinding the XP out (and grinding was never a more appropriate term) on the Paladin lately. I managed to gain two full levels of XP this weekend, almost exclusively through killing things instead of questing. I realize that it seems kind of odd, but as a Prot Paladin it’s just so much easier to round up 10-15 mobs at once and tank ‘em into the dirt. Assuming XP from each mob is 1400-1700 (rested), then an individual pull this size is more or less equal to a quest turnin. I got a great tip from a reader to grind up some Scarlet Onslaught mobs in Dragonblight, and they’re absolutely perfect for the duty. The mobs in question are located just north of Naxxramas; there are 5 camps, each with about 10-15 troops in them. There are no casters, no interrupters, no stuns, no fears and no bleeds among them. Pure physical damage. The only abilities that they posses outside of dealing physical damage involve a sunder armor effect (stacks to 5, but they manage to lose the stack a lot), and a stacking +damage buff that basically sees the little zealots putting out 200 more damage per hit at max stack. Nothing too tough to contend with, I was pulling up to 15 at level 75 and so if the numbers are a bit much, just control the size of your pull a bit more. Wicked easy grinding spot with fast repop. I also lucked into a rare spawn that wandered through on horseback, easily handled in with the trash.

  Eusko is now halfway through 77 (2 1/2 levels to go) and I’ve got his level 80 gear almost entirely ready. The tricky part that’s left is, I need to get more Argent Crusade reputation. While I’m fairly certain that I won’t be able to achieve Revered by the ding, I know that Honored is attainable – and as it turns out, somewhat necessary. That’s because, while the Daunting Legplates might be serviceable, I really need to work in a little +hit for my initial gear – and the Special Issue Legplates fit the bill nicely. Besides that, I need to work up to the head enchant anyhow. To date, I have accumulated the following for him:

• Tempered Titansteel Helm (Austere Earthsiege Diamond / Solid Sky Sapphire)
• Wapauch’s Spaulders of Solidarity (Inscription BoP chant)
• Tattered Castle Drape (Titanweave)
• Icebane Chestguard (Flashing Scarlet Ruby – Rigid Autumn’s Glow – Solid Sky Sapphire – Greater Defense)
• Bracers of Dalaran’s Parapets (Major Stamina)
• Refined Ore Gloves (Armsman)
• Waistguard of the Risen Knight (Rigid Autumn’s Glow)
• Inexorable Sabatons (Rigid Autumn’s Glow – Greater Fortitude)
• Signet of the Accord
• Titanium Earthguard Ring (Solid Sky Sapphire)
• Dabiri’s Enigma
• Regal Protectorate
• Sword of Heartwrenching Slaughter (undecided enchant)
• Titansteel Shield Wall (Defense)

  Still to be acquired are a Titanium Earthguard Chain (Flashing Scarlet Ruby) and the aforementioned Special Issue Legplates (Flashing Scarlet Ruby – Jormungar Leg Armor). All told, this should place me over 25k unbuffed health, 23k armor, defense capped and with reasonable avoidance. I did the math on this stuff at reasonable / normal AH prices, and it’s ridiculous – over 15,000 gold on my server. Really, though, I spent very little to get it done thanks to professions. I had all of the uncut gems in my inventory from Hiltzaile’s Mining, and Eusko’s leveling grind had produced enough greens for disenchantment that I have most of the necessary chanting mats (but for the single Abyss Shard). As to my acquisition prices for all of it?

• Helm – 85g for the Frozen Orb. I had the Titansteel and Saronite on Hiltz already.
• Neck – ~500g for the Dragon’s eyes still, and 85g for another orb. I’m going to try and barter for the Dragon’s Eyes.
• Shoulder – The expensive (and hard to get) piece. Got em for 2800, which is pretty decent. Seen em posted up to 4000.
• Back – Free, got it on a Heroic and had it in the bank.
• Chest – 85g for the Frozen Orb. Had the rest in the bank.
• Wrist – Free, used Manchego’s Badges as I don’t need anything else for her.
• Hands – Caught a break here, 50g on the AH.
• Waist – Free, got it on a heroic run and had it in the bank. Had mats for the belt buckle.
• Feet – A frequent AH item, I waited for a low priced one. 1200g.
• Shield – 85g for Frozen Orb, had the rest already.
• Signet of the Accord – 1000g on AH. I got a deal, it’s usually up for 1800-2000.
• Titanium Earthguard Ring – I had some Dragon’s Eyes banked. Had to buy one and the Orb, 210g total.
• Sword, trinkets – free from quests.
• Net cost for me: 6100g (less if I can trade for Dragon’s Eyes)

  So, really, kind of palatable (given). I know that some of these pieces are going to be replaced fairly fast. The trinkets are a joke, for instance. If I can get the drop off Loken, I’ll be able to add in one other trinket as that single one (Seal of the Pantheon) does the job of the two that I have currently. The legs will go soon, too (either from VH, Naxx or OS) – which is why I’m not sinking money into the uber leg armor kit for them. For the most part, though this should allow me a very good tanking set for just about any content that I want to run – and it will only get better. (also, I know that, point-for-point, +dodge > +parry for avoidance… but my jewelcrafting source had one and not the other, and I’m gonna justify it with the “Parry=haste=threat” excuse, so there. Neener neener.)

  I did make one unfortunate discovery when I was getting it all together. When I was doing the math on what I would need to hit 689 defense (enough to attain the magic 540 rating), I decided that it would be better for me to go and do the Netherstorm quests for Dabiri’s Enigma than to attain that defense from gems. So, I zoned into Shatt, flew to Stormspire and got ready to head over to the Consortium guys – only to discover that I had no flying mount! Eusko was my 7th toon to hit level 70 in Burning Crusade, and did so not too long before the expansion (maybe 1-2 months). I’d apparently never bothered to go and pay the guy in SMV to teach him to fly – imagine that!

  So, after I’ve sunk a tidy sum of cash into his gear (and also took out a bit of a withdrawal for the wife to get her Dragon from Wyrmrest – Exalted), I’m sitting with a tick over 2000g and a bit of a conundrum. I have enough cash to go and pay for the ghetto flying mount plus cold weather tax and he’d be GTG, but I’ll deplete my reserves. I’m especially leery of this as 3.1 is moving ever closer, and Manch is *definitely* going to be dual-specced as soon as possible. So, I could drop the initial 1000g for flight on Eusko, but it’s kind of worthless given that it doesn’t work in Northrend unless you pay the Blizz 2000g. Theoretically, I could quest faster – but slow mount is still slow, and Prot Pallies don’t do anything fast, ever. So, I think I’ll just sit on my cash and see what I can dredge up through intermittent auction house work (or, clean out the bank a bit) and pay the fees when I get closer to 80, which I think I can hit by the end of the weekend. Meh.

Honest Scrap

Someone found a nifty jpeg. Now, it’s a blogger meme.

Ok, I’ve been tagged with this one too (thanks, Drug!) Blogger memes are like chain letters, we keep on forwarding them with no logical reason as to why – but what the hell, I’m game. It’s something to do! Personally, I think about half of my writing is honestly crap, so maybe that’s where it comes from.

“This award is bestowed on a fellow blogger whose blog content or design is, in the giver’s opinion, brilliant.”

So, the rules:

When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to the said person so everyone knows she/he is real.
Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon. (Where the heck am I going to find seven untagged bloggers that I frequently read?)
List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on!

So, I’ll start with the victims. If you’ve been nailed already, be proud that more than one person reads your blog. I’m still sitting on 3 readers, myself. (I kid, but we all like the gratification of that silly meter, do we not?)

• Ardent Defender- I’m glad Galo is back and blogging. If you have a tanky Paladin, this site is a wonderful resource. He’s got so much stuff linked, Google is jealous. Now, if I could just get him to server transfer to Skywall…
• The Angry Butterfly- I like to see what Neg is up to, and I’m admittedly jealous of her progression (of course I am, I play on Skylawl). I really admire her for sticking to a spec she likes in spite of Ghostcrawler’s shenanigans.
• Spirit Bond- It takes some reasonable dedication to blog RP stuff. She does it as well as anyone could!
• Armory Data Mine- Technically a blog, this is some very interesting reading if you haven’t happened onto it before.
• Hoof ‘n Healz- One of the first Shaman blogs that I read regularly. Hello, daddy – hello, mom – J-J-J-J-J-Jaegerbombz!
• WoW Twink Info- I hate PvP, but this is almost enough to make me want to try it again. Regardless, it’s a ridiculously good resource.
• Secret Agent Cat – It takes a bit of gumption to be a Cat Feral. Not only do you have to look at that slack-jawed lion-thing all day, but you have to convince your Raid Leader that you’re more helpful not being a Bear. She pulls it off well.

  So, there’s seven from the community. Harder and harder to find ones that haven’t quit these days! And now for something completely different, 10 things about me:

1. I’m nearly 34 years old, married and a father of one (so far!)
2. I refuse to play with anything other than default UI because I’m old and crotchety.
3. I have 10 toons on Skywall, one of each class. They’re *all* Horde.
4. Despite that, the first toon I ever rolled was a Gnome Mage. I still have her, she’s like level 12.
5. My ‘original’ toon was Eltorogrande – because friggin everyone plays Hunters.
6. I don’t have a single toon with 1000 Honorable Kills, in over 2 1/2 years of WoW. I both abhor and suck at PvP.
7. I work in the insurance business, night shift. As such, I have ridiculous amounts of free time to write this blog.
8. I play ice hockey, and have for almost 18 years now. Usually wing or defense.
9. I once got pulled out of a trunk by US Customs when I was 19, at the Canadian border. It’s a long story, and it involves alcohol. Fortunately, it doesn’t involve arrests.
10.  I met my wife on the internets, over five years ago. She’s from Spain, but unless you knew that in advance, you can’t tell it on vent (she plays a Mage and an Ele Shammy).

So there you go, a 7-10 split that even Walter Sobchakcould approve of. If I was worried about getting flamed for The Idiots Guide to Resto Shammy Naxx ™, I’d probably better *really* duck and cover for this one!

Naxxramas from the eyes of a Resto Shammy

   I kind of debated putting this up; when I wrote it, it was for a person that I raid with who is converting from Elemental to Resto and running Naxx in the same groups that I do. As such, it’s markedly simplistic at times and makes a lot of assumptions throughout with regards to prior knowledge. Ultimately, though, I just felt like it was a resource that would be best shared – even if this only helps one or two people to get a better grip on Naxx, then that’s a good thing. Especially if their Shaman isn’t a Space Goat. (just kidding, Space Goats!)

 

  That said, I’m sure that higher-level players / raiders will find all kinds of stuff to take exception to, or that can be done better. See the disclaimer at the end, lol – I’m just a guy with a Chain Heal button! Seriously, though – if you can add something to this in the comments that you think will benefit people that are still learning Naxx, feel free.

 

 

 

  Also, this is more written from the 25-man perspective. And I’m rambling – so, here it goes. be warned, it’s *long*! 

*****************************************************  

Naxxramas: Step by step 

  This is intended to display, as best as possible, what *I* do during the entirety of Naxxramas as a Healer generally assigned to at-large Raid Healing. I’ll go through each boss, plus trash, with my specifics in an effort to help you tighten up your runs, and improve your output as a Healer. Note that a Healer’s overall worth isn’t measured purely on the overall healing output displayed on the WWS reports; however, it’s certainly in your best interest to be competitive with them. 

  First, I’ll explain my default toolbar. It’s typically setup as follows:

• 1 ) Kitchen Sink Macro
• 2 ) Lesser Healing Wave
• 3 ) Healing Wave
• 4 ) Chain Heal
• 5 ) Riptide
• 6 ) Magma Totem
• 7 ) Stoneskin Totem
• 8 ) Wrath of Air Totem
• 9 ) Mana Spring Totem
• 10 ) Mana Tide Totem

  On the bar above the main toolbar, I have Cleanse Spirit, my Earth shield Macro, and Earth shield in the first 3 slots, for easy switching. 

  As far as the macros go: the “Kitchen Sink” macro is as follows: 

• /stopcasting
• /cast Tidal Force
• /cast Nature’s Swiftness
• /cast Chain Heal 

  If you have an “on use” trinket that adds Spellpower for a short duration, insert a line that says “/use [trinket name]” before the first line. This allows you to throw a big-bomb Chain Heal in an emergency situation with a near-guaranteed critical hit. 

  For the Earth shield macro, I simply have it set to target a given tank – usually Taladas. 

• /tar Taladas
• /cast earth shield
• /targetlasttarget 

I do this so that I can renew the shield on him without bothering to target him in raid frames. Simply push the button, renew, and return to what I was doing. Now that you know my setup, I’ll walk you through the instance. 

Plague Wing 

  The initial trash isn’t very tough. Watch for damage spikes if someone pulls aggro on slime, but that’s about it. On Gargoyles, start Chain Healing when you see raid health dropping.. This is more important on 2-mob pulls where it actually starts to matter at the end when the stacks get high. Consider a Searing Totem nearby to the Gargoyles as well, dropped at the start of the fight Top off the raid while the debuff fades, and on to Noth. 

Noth the Plaguebringer

  Toolbar changes: move “Kitchen Sink” macro out in favor of Cleanse Spirit. 

  Food: any 

  Healing the fight: While Noth is on the ground, you’ll just be casting the odd Chain Heal or Riptide here and there while you maintain the Earth Shield on a given tank. What you *must* look out for is the Curse of the Plaguebringer, a purple debuff icon that Noth will place on up to 10 raid members at once, about 2 times per ground phase. If this is not cured from ALL affected raiders, it will blossom into very heavy DoT damage across the raid. This *will* kill people. Your #1 priority, above all else, is to remove these via Cleanse Spirit when they are up. Once Noth teleports up to the balcony, the raid will focus on the skeleton adds. Pay attention for when a Guardian appears, as they will AOE an Arcane Explosion that means you’ll have to Chain Heal fairly frequently. Once Noth teleports back down, settle into a more relaxed routine and be ready to decurse again the moment you see the debuff. 

  The trash between Noth and Heigan can deal some damage, particularly through disease. Swap your Disease Cleansing Totem into your bars in place of Mana Spring for now, and drop it on the spots where mobs are being tanked. Chain Heal into the tank and surrounding raid as needed.  

Heigan the Unclean

  Toolbar Changes: you should have already done it, but Mana Spring out, Disease Cleansing in. Also, move Searing Totem into the slot usually occupied by Magma Totem. 

  Food: any 

  Healing the fight: On the pull, you run up to the platform, heading to the back-middle part. On your way, drop a Disease Cleansing Totem on the erupting floor area; your melee will thank you later. Once on the platform, healing is surprisingly easy. You can help the most by looking for the disease debuff on melee and cleansing it, followed by a Chain Heal or two into the melee group once the debuffs have all been removed. When the Raid Leader calls that Heigan is about to teleport to his platform, drop that Searing Totem to keep him company, and head to the floor for the dance. As you are running across the dance floor, try to renew that Disease Cleansing Totem somewhere between segments 2 and 3. If you see someone lose health, Riptide them. If a lot of people spike, click the Kitchen Sink and cast it while you run. If both abilities are on cooldown, you can also help by using Cleanse Spirit on anyone who gets hit while dancing as getting hit means getting diseased. Don’t stop to cast anything non-instant, even Lesser Healing Wave. When the dance is done, get back to his platform and look around for anyone with the disease debuff, they will likely need attention quickly as it is a powerful DoT. Once everyone is safe, resume as before between phases until he dies.

  For the trash between Heigan and Loatheb, resist the urge to cast any healing spells until you reach the end of the maggot run; doing so *will* cause you to get agro, and you *will* die. Be sure to Earth Shield a tank, and just run with them. Once you reach the archway at the back end, drop a magma totem, run a little further in, and start Chain Healing anything with less than 100% on the health bar as fast as you can cast them. 

Loatheb 

  Toolbar changes: switch to your DPS toolbar. The only spell you’ll need from a healing standpoint is Chain Heal, though you may want the Kitchen Sink handy.

  Food: any but +crit. Hit Rating food is useful. 

  Healing the fight: The trick to Loatheb is timing your Chain Heal so that one casts right as the window drops, so that if you immediately start a second one, you can get in two. I will DPS up until the debuff (necrotic aura) has about 3-4 seconds left on it, just to be safe. Select a target to start your Chain Heal on, and when the aura ticks from 2 to 1, immediately start your cast. As the heal is casting, select another target and start mashing the Chain Heal button so that it casts as soon as the first one completes. With practice, and the right amount of +haste, you should be able to get off 2x Chain Heal in the available window. Otherwise, cast what you can for offense, use your Fire Elemental, and use Searing Totem when the Fire Elemental is on cooldown. 

Arachnid Wing 

  Toolbar changes: your water totem for this entire wing will be the Poison Cleansing Totem, except for Anub’Rekhan. 

  Many of the trash pulls with larger spiders will involve curses. The spiders will curse multiple targets with great frequency, reducing healing by 75% on that target (it looks like “Windfury Weapon”, kind of). If you see that debuff being applied, FORGET HEALING. It is far more important that you cleanse as much as possible, especially on the tanks, to prevent possible wipes. There are enough Priests and Paladins present to heal; you need to get those curses so that they can. I will also frequently drop Magma Totems into the pulls, especially the Skitterers. 

Anub’Rekhan

  Toolbar changes: as he does not use poison, bring back Mana Spring for this fight.

  Food: any

  Healing the fight: Run into the room off-center to the left of the green dot in the middle of the floor when the tank runs in to start it off. Chain Heal offtanks / melee as the Crypt Guards are downed, and then move within Chain Heal range of one of the melee DPS players and start looking for anyone who drops health. If you get bounced up into the air, Riptide yourself and select another target that is airborne so that you can start up a Chain Heal on them when you land. If Corpse Scarabs spawn, drop a Magma Totem. Once Anub’Rekhan starts his Locust Plague, I run back in the direction of the door, slightly to the side on which the Main Tank is kiting Anub’Rekhan back to the original entry point of the room. Target the Main Tank at this point; As soon as he gets in range, Riptide him and run in the opposite direction – Anub’Rekhan has an aura which will inflict the Locust Plague debuff, so immediately moving away keeps you from being impacted. Stop after a bit, wait for the Main Tank to come back into range and hit him with Healing Wave when he does (should be on fast-cast status due to Tidal Waves talent after the Riptide you just cast), then back away again to a spot where you should be able to heal the Main Tank once he arrives at his destination, but still places you out of range for Anub’Rekhan’s aura debuff. Once you’re sure that the Main Tank Healers have him comfortably, resume Raid Healing as before. 

  Grand Widow Faerlina’s trash is the only different trash that you will encounter from that which preceded Anub’Rekhan. They will deal massive AOE shadowbolts to the raid, and this is very dangerous if they are being chain pulled. The moment you see someone in the raid get hit by this, start casting Chain heals, and cast them as fast as you can until the pull is over on different targets. You’ll have plenty of time for mana before Faerlina. 

Grand Widow Faerlina 

  Toolbar Changes: Bring Kitchen Sink to a hotkey in place of Cleanse Spirit, and replace Mana Spring with Poison Cleansing Totem. 

  Food: any 

  Healing the fight: The biggest thing that you can bring to this fight is the Poison Totem. Try to lay it in a more or less central position for the raid to get maximum coverage. It may seem like it’s taking a long time to get all of the debuffs off, but it does help immensely. During the fight, you’ll primarily be spamming Chain Heals all over the raid, simply select a target that is lower on health than everyone else and fire it off. She does enough regular multiple target damage that it’s entirely possible for her to damage more people before you finish your casts, so be proactive instead of reactive and keep the heals bouncing all over. It’s a short fight, so don’t worry about mana and overheals, just throw them out there. Also, don’t stand in the Rain of Fire AOEs she drops. Make sure that the occasional Chain Heal gets directed at add tanks to help out. 

  Maexxna trash is just like the rest, with the occasional Shade. No big deal, just remember to decurse if a mob is dropping that debuff. I can’t stress it enough, this is more important to the raid than actual heals from the Shamans. 

Maexxna

  Toolbar Changes: swap Kitchen Sink back out in favor of Cleanse Spirit. You want this hotkeyed. 

  Food: any

  Healing the fight: Really, a fairly easy fight to heal. Put you Poison Cleansing Totem down in a central location. When someone gets webbed, Riptide them on their return or Chain Heal off them. Magma Totems when Spiderlings appear on the web. Pay attention to the Main Tank; he will be afflicted periodically with a distinct poison icon that the Totem will not cleanse, and it reduces healing TONS. If you see it, cleanse it. Remember, Priests cannot cleanse poison, so help out the Paladins / Priests healing the Tank and don’t make them (pallies) use a cooldown on the cleanse when you can. Pay particular attention to this coming out of the mass-web stages and be spamming cleanse if the debuff is on a webbed tank. Always be sure to keep Earth Shield up if you are shielding the Main Tank as well. When you see the Spiderlings appear on the web, the mass stun is about to hit as well. Riptide the Main Tank 2-3 seconds after the spawn to help him survive the wrap period. Once Maexxna enrages, there should ideally be only one mass stun left. If the Main Tank is not afflicted by the poison debuff, be spamming your Kitchen Sink macro key while webbed so that it fires immediately when you are released; if the Main Tank is afflicted, spam cleanse instead. With luck and Healer coordination, you will ride it out and down her. 

Military Quarter 

  Be aware that most of the trash in this wing can do some kind of AOE damage, usually whirlwind. Spam Chain Heal all over the place one pulls, particularly on melee raiders, to cut down on unnecessary deaths. 

Instructor Razuvious 

  Toolbar Changes: Swap out Totem of the Bay for Totem of Forest Growth.

  Food: MP5 or haste is best, but any works

  Healing the fight: This is one of the fights where a Shaman really shines. You’re likely Raid Healing on this; if you aren’t, make a macro to help your heals on the Understudy adds that goes like this:

• /tar Instructor
• /assist
• /cast Healing Wave

  Note that if you are healing Understudies, you will want to equip the Totem of Misery if you have it (reduced mana cost for Healing Wave). As you are a suboptimal class to heal them, but superior to heal Raid, though, you likely are not going to have this task. If you are Raid Healing, it’s pretty simple: cast Chain Heal, and do it A LOT. I will look at the raid frames while I’m casting to see if anyone is afflicted by the Jagged Knife DoT bleed; if they are, I will click that name as the starting point for my heal. While you’re bouncing them all over, remember two other things: if you see a Priest that looks a bit low, toss a Riptide on them (fight fails if they die!), and don’t forget to bounce the occasional Chain Heal into one of the tanks (who are holding the Understudies). Basically just Chain Heal like a madman, drop your Mana Tide Totem at some point when you are between 30-60% mana and have a window during which you can do it, and you’re doing your part. 

  Trash pulls afterwards don’t differ much from previous parts of the wing. They look different, but the result is the same – lots of AOE potential. Chain Heal the heck out of that raid!

Gothik the Harvester 

  Tool Bar Changes: Cleanse Spirit is out in favor of Kitchen Sink. If no Elemental Shaman is on your side, use Flametongue for your Fire Totem. 

  Food: haste or spellpower ideally 

   Healing the fight: Gothik is a fight that progressively gets very intense due to incoming damage. It’s so easy at the beginning that you will practically lull yourself to sleep and take it for granted; as it ramps up, though, you will need to be more or less back-to-back, nonstop casting Chain Heal to survive. The really important thing is to prevent deaths on your assigned side as much as possible. Go hell bent for leather on casting, because you only need your mana to last until Gothik teleports down to the fight on your side. There will be plenty of time to regenerate it while he’s on the other side, and healing his damage is completely trivial.

The Four Horsemen 

  Tool Bar Changes: if you are healing a single Tank in the rear, Totem of Misery. Flametongue Totem if you are assigned to either Rivendare or Korth’azz and the Elemental Shaman is elsewhere. Cleanse Spirit out in favor of Kitchen Sink. Fire Resistance Totem if you’re healing Korth’azz’ corner.

  Food: MP5 if you’re in the rear, any otherwise

  Healing the fight: The rear is the hard part, as they hit a ton on their tank. Pace your Healing Waves, Riptide yourself, and you can last. Be aware that if you are the last one out, you will be targeted and take some monster shots that will need to be healed through. Up front, be mindful of the switches, Chain Heal with the Tank as the starting point and the bounces picking up the rest of the Raid This fight is actually surprisingly low on damage if everyone executes the choreography correctly; just stick with that Chain Heal and bounce off anyone within range as often as you see health bars dip. This is particularly important if you’re the healer on the Korth’azz corner, as the Meteor damage needs to be accounted for.

Construct Quarter 

  For the initial trash, stay well back of where the mobs are being tanked, but within range to heal the tanks. If you get too close, you’ll get stunned, and people will die. Your heals are about 10 yard longer in range than the Abomination stuns, so position carefully and win. 

Patchwerk

  Tool Bar Changes: Replace Totem of the Bay with Totem of Forest Growth. Kitchen Sink Macro available on a hotkey as well. Consider swapping out pieces which lack MP5 for those that do, and gearing more towards haste than crit if that is an option.

  Food: MP5, haste if MP5 is sufficient. 

  Healing the fight: Patchwerk will test your ability to spam heal like nothing else in the instance. It’s one of the best spells for healing this fight as it bounces to all three tanks and has the added bonus of increasing their armor on criticals. Your crit rating should be sufficient to maintain a constant uptime on this buff anyhow, so don’t worry about gearing for crit. Make sure that you drop all of your totems about 10 seconds before he is pulled so that you are at maximum mana at the start, and your Water Shield is refreshed. You will not have many Global Cooldowns to spare once he is pulled. Pay attention to the tank target assigned to you by your Raid Leader, and NEVER, EVER deviate from it unless that target dies. Once Patchwerk is engaged, start casting Chain Heals as fast as you can. Don’t stop if you see the tank at full health; he can get hit in mid-cast and it simply takes too long to start and complete a new cast in that scenario. Just cast-cast-cast as fast as you can. When your mana is at approximately 50%, drop Mana Tide directly after a Chain Heal and resume casting them as soon as possible. Once the Mana Tide Totem has expired, replace it AS SOON AS POSSIBLE with a new Mana Spring as you cannot afford to have the lapse in mana recovery. Note that this action (dropping the totem) is a dangerous point in the process, as it leaves a 1 second window with each totem that can cause some bad results if you’re a tank. Other than that one totem exchange, and the possible advent of consuming a mana potion, you should be doing nothing but casting Chain Heal as fast as you can on your assigned target. Anything else results in raid wipes. 

Grobbulus 

  Tool Bar Changes: Totem of the Bay is back in for this one. Get Cleanse Spirit and Disease Cleansing Totem as far away from possibly being cast as possible.

  Food: any

  Healing the fight: Think of the room as being like an athletic field with a track around it. During the fight, you want to set up more towards the middle of the “field” part, while the main Tank and melee move around the “track”. I like to set up my totems in odd spots on this one; since most of the raid is going to be near the ramp on the pull, that’s where totems will be placed by most, and as he moves, they will go out of range. I usually place mine near the first turn, slightly towards the original entry door so that, as the kiting progresses, they come into range and benefit. For healing spells, the primary concern is to keep melee units topped off and watch the health of those hit by mutating injections. If you can Riptide someone before they drop it, do. Otherwise, hit a Riptide or Lesser Healing Wave when they get back in range. Dump Chain Heals into the offtank with the Slimes, as they have an AOE aura that will damage those near them, so you will help to keep anyone that isn’t the offtank topped off as well.

Gluth

  Tool Bar Changes: Earthbind in, Stoneskin out. Magma Totem in as well. Kitchen Sink in favor of Cleanse Spirit as well, just in case.

Food:  any

  Healing the fight: If you’re on the tanks, simply keep Earth Shield up on Gluth’s current target and supplement their healing as you are able. When Decimate hits, get the two tanks up to speed quickly and then pass a few Chain Heals around the raid. Remember that your primary focus is the tanks in this case, though, so don’t stay off of them too long. Really, though – Gluth doesn’t hit the tanks terribly hard and should be easy to manage. If you’re healing kiters, look for the debuff icon next to the player names in raid frames that indicates that they have been hit in melee by a Zombie. If you see any of these marked players below 100%, top them off. I usually do so through Chain Heal, hoping that the bounce from it might catch another kiter or two. You can greatly ease your healing load by always keeping an Earthbind Totem up as well, and very much should have one up throughout the fight regardless of your position. In the rear, this helps the kiters. If you are healing tanks, this helps slow down any errant Chow and allow more time for a kiter to reacquire it. During Decimates, first order of business is to run to a position midway between Gluth and Chows so that you can drop both Earthbind and Magma Totems to help the Raid down the Chows before Gluth eats them.  

  On the trash between Gluth and Thaddius – Geists and Shades aren’t an issue. On the Giants, you’ll want to be Chain Healing as fast as possible once they do their first knockback, as a second one can (and will) kill people in the raid, so do your best to get everyone healed at least to 75% before that second one hits. Sometimes, either due to patrolling giants or overzealous tanks, two or more of these guys will be chain pulled. It is very likely that people will die in this situation, so try as best you can to keep people up through it all and don’t stop casting (think Patchwerk) if this is the case.

Thaddius

  Tool Bar Changes: Nature Resistance in, Wrath of Air out. Flametongue in, Magma out.

  Food: any, +hit is helpful.

  Healing the fight: The first stage is either easy or moderately intensive depending which side you’re on. I forget which miniboss is which, Stalagg or Feugen; if you are healing on the one to the right (as you come into the room), be ready for consistent AOE damage on the Raid. This is why you will want the Nature Resistance totem, as it’s all lightning. Chain Heal liberally to make sure that nobody dies before Thaddius is engaged. Be aware of tank switches and don’t tarry on a tank if they’ve been tossed across to the other platform; I like to Riptide them right before they get tossed as well, just to help out a bit. By comparison, damage on the left platform is mostly confined to the tank – so just stay on top of the switches. Once you drop down to Thaddius, move into melee range on your side and get ready for the switch. Laying a Nature Resistance Totem again at this point is very helpful, as all of his splash damage is also lightning-based. He really doesn’t require much for Raid healing; most of the damage that hits is from people who screw up their charges, and they die so fast that it cannot be healed through. Set your totems down on landing if there is no Elemental Shaman in your group; if there is, just lay the Nature Resistance one and wait until you get sent to the other side for the rest; by doing this, you’ll help to spread totem buffs across both sides of charges. Much like Loatheb, you’ll likely be able to spend about 75% of this fight doing some degree of DPS. Classes like Holy Paladins and Resto Druids don’t have the flexibility to DPS as much, and if you have the raid healing pretty well covered by them (realistically, about 3 people can do this), then it is most helpful to supplement the raid DPS. Basically, fire off a Flame Shock, a Lava Burst and a Lightning Bolt, then Chain heal someone and repeat – just be sure to immediately terminate your cast and run if he shifts your polarity!

Frost Wyrm Lair

Sapphiron

  Tool Bar Changes: Cleanse Spirit absolutely needs to be in your bar on a hotkey. It’s handy to have the Kitchen Sink handy as well, just in case. Change your current Fire totem out for Frost Resistance. If you have Polar gear, equip it. Depending on your MP5 after this action, consider changing your totem of the Bay out for the Forest Growth Totem, as your mana pool inherently suffers in size and regeneration due to gear.

  Food: MP5 ideally, possibly haste. Any will suffice, though.

  Healing the fight: This isn’t a very optimal fight for Shamans to heal in terms of the “amount healed” numbers. Essentially, get your Frost Resistance Totem down to help out the Raid (damage not taken is the same as healed damage, after all), and more or less Chain Heal anyone within range that you can. Riptide occasionally if someone is particularly low, but Chain Healing is generally more effective. The bigger responsibility here is the Life Drain that Sapphiron will place on up to four people at a time throughout the fight, about 2-3 times per ground phase. This will cause a DoT effect on the target that (compounded with the frost aura) is very dangerous; the bigger point, though, is that each tick heals Sapphiron for thousands. Thus, you must work to clear this THE MOMENT YOU SEE IT, or it will lengthen the fight considerably. Other than that, when you are grouped behind an ice block during the air phases, take a moment to renew your Water Shield and then target yourself for a Chain Heal cast or two, since you can be sure that you’re in range. 

Kel’Thuzad

  Tool Bar Changes: Standard totems, though you may want to consider placing the Stoneclaw Totem in place of Stoneskin. Armor isn’t very effective here, but Stoneclaw can be used when Kel’Thuzad Mind Controls players. Cleanse Spirit is out, Kitchen Sink in. Make sure to move Hex into your bar as well, likely in place of Lesser Healing Wave 

  Food: MP5 or haste ideally. Any will do.

  Healing the fight: The first phase, with the Abominations and such, is fairly easy as damage is minimal. Just watch for spikes and act accordingly. In the second phase, it’s actually very simple as well. Chain Heal the targets of his Frostbolt Volleys to keep them topped off. It’s important that you do this via Chain Heal for a few reasons: #1, it will hit a number of people and thus keep more of the raid topped off. If players are Frost Tombed at less than 100% health, then the drop from that point to zero is too fast to be healed through. #2, Casting a Chain Heal at least every 15 seconds (yours will be far more frequent than that) means that you will keep the Tidal Waves buff up. This is vitally important for Frost Tombs; first instinct for most Shaman is to cast Riptide or Lesser Healing Wave on these targets. I would submit that this is not the right response, as the throughput from those spells is not sufficient. However, with Tidal Waves up, your cast time for Healing Wave is about 1-2/3 seconds. The moment you see the frost debuff in your Raid Frames, target that player and cast Healing Wave – this is more than enough healing throughput to guarantee that even a high-health target like a Druid Tank will survive. The one exception is this: if you see that debuff icon on more than one target (meaning it chained to two or more people) IMMEDIATELY stop what you’re casting and hit that Kitchen Sink macro to sink a Chain Heal into the afflicted; then keep mashing the key that the macro is bound to so that a second Chain Heal gets cast as fast as possible, as any targets further than position #2 in your Chain Heal will need it to live. Once the add phase comes, drop a Mana Tide Totem to get more or less topped off, renew all of your totems afterwards (along with Water Shield) and get ready to more or less spam Chain Heal all over the place for the duration of the fight. Finally, should you spot the “Chains of Kel’Thuzad” debuff in the raid frames, drop the Stoneclaw Totem and try to cast Hex on anyone afflicted, if they are within range. If everyone is on top of this, then this ability should have a negligible impact. Keep in mind, you can’t hex Druids.

Summary

  If you look it over, you’ll see a bit of a pattern develop with regards to healing selection; notably, almost everything is Chain Heal spam. Part of this is a function of the fact that I usually serve in an “at large” raid healing capacity, so that’s the best actor. The other driver, though, is that our class design is really designed to be casting that particular spell. If you’re spamming either Healing Wave or Light Healing Wave on a tank, you’ll see a noticeable decline in mana versus Chain Heal spam – it’s just too draining to keep up over any kind of a sustained term. Another thing to consider about your healing is throughput – that is, Chain Heal (over 3-4 targets) is generating far more in overall output than either single target spell. Even on a single target, it’s surprisingly comparable to Healing Wave, so it’s often best to just chuck it and hope for the bounce.

  Notice, too, that there should be an emphasis on using totems that other Shaman are not. For instance, I frequently use the damaging Fire totems. That’s because it’s a waste for me to drop Flametongue in an area that’s covered by a Totem of Wrath, since my buff is lesser. Thus, even the little damage afforded by one of those totems does more to benefit the raid than does putting down a lesser duplicate buff.

  Finally, it pays to be aware of the roles that other classes have in the fights so that you understand all of the movements better. If you aren’t sure about some aspect of the fights, it may be helpful to brush up on them here.

  Actually, one last thing: I’m not some kind of final authority or anything, just a guy who plays a lot of WoW. You may find methods that differ from mine and produce better results – feel free to experiment and see what works best for you once you’re used to the fights!