Revenge.  I wanted to taste Zul’jin blood.  (Especially from his 10 Badge Vial.)  The last time PTD hit ZA, Zul’jin wiped him and his group out.  Sure, we only took two shots, but still, he wiped us out.  I hate to leave dungeons unfinished, and I could almost hear his mocking laughter as we called it quits and left.  It was embarrassing.

Well, last night was my chance at revenge.  The wife’s Mother is in town, so it afforded me the opportunity to sign up for a rare weeknight raid.  I have my eyes on the nice healing headpiece that the Dragonhawk drops, as well as badges for the Gavel.

We had a solid group: our two best tanks (warrior and pally), myself the tree along with our top CoH priest and a shammy for healing, and good DPS.  We went in trying for the first two timed chests.  Thus far I don’t believe we’ve been able to get the third, but I see that changing soon.

I won’t go into huge detail, but we one shot all of the aspects in this order:  Bear, Eagle, Dragonhawk (no headpiece, sob) and Lynx.  We did wipe once on the trash leading to the Dragonhawk, but other than that we were smooth. 

The real tests start after the four animal bosses are down, though.  That Hex Lord fight can be tough.  It turns out our mix of NPCs was decent, and it only took us two tries to take him down.  The first wipe was my fault, as I was standing a little too close to the Hex Lord and he went all Magey frost bolty on my barky butt and took me down.  They actually almost finished the job without me (I went down VERY early) and got him down to 6% or so before wiping.

Oh well.

We tried again and this time took him down pretty smoothly, with only a couple of deaths.  That is one tough fight, but it is also quite enjoyable.  Up to this point, I was leading the healing charts, but our priest cheated and racked up the heals with CoH during the Hex Lord fight(s).  No matter, the only meter that really matters is the "win" meter, and we were up on that one.

Next came my second look at Zul’jin.  Last time, if you recall, I had trouble with the third phase tornadoes.  Again, on our first try we had trouble with that phase, but did squeak through it.  We didn’t have enough people survive to continue though, and decided to wipe it and try again.

On the second try, I finally got a good tip on how to handle the tornado phase.  Keep a triple stack of lifebloom on myself at all times.  That allows me to toss LB on anyone who needed it without fear of the damage taking me out.  It worked like a charm.  (The tip came from the Shadow Priest who was with us, whose main is a Tree, and he is usually the tree in ZA runs.  My only question, Ease, is why didn’t you tell me before the FIRST attempt?  )

We got through that phase rather nicely on that attempt, and for the first time I got to see the Lynx part of the fight.  Man, does Zul’jin go nuts on people during that part.  My ability to help keep people up during his claws of fury attack or whatever is somewhat limited, but I did what I could.  A couple people went down during that phase, including one of the healers, but we got through it to his last phase.

Honestly, I don’t even know what was going on in that last phase.  I was busy trying to keep the tank up, and avoiding the fiery pillar thingys.  After a couple minutes or so of rolling lifebloom and rejuv, Zul’jin went down.  Yay! 

There was a time when ZA was released that the guild ran it at least 2 days a week.  I was never able to come, as they ran it on Monday and Tuesday, which are bad nights for me.  For a time we gave up on ZA, but it looks like we’re picking it back up again now that our gear is better thanks to T5 and T6 raiding.  Anyhow, as it turns out, this was only the second time we had cleared ZA in one night.  Yay for us!  And all together we’ve only cleared it around 4 or 5 times total.  I’d say we are a LOT better now than we were then, though.  I’m glad I was able to be a part of this run.

I think I can now safely say that I REALLY like ZA.  It’s challenging, there is great loot, and a decent number of badges for the time investment.  Sure, you get more in Kara, but Kara is mostly trivial to us at this point.  About the only time I find challenge in Kara anymore is if I’m in a PUG or trying to heal it alone.  ZA takes solid contributions from everyone to succeed.  You can’t carry a newb through ZA like you can Kara.  (I suppose maybe you could for the first couple aspects, but overall it’s not feasible…they would die a LOT.)  I look forward to more runs in the future, and since it reset this morning I’ll see if I can get something thrown together on the fly tonight.

Oh yeah, I suppose you’d like to see what I saw in terms of loot.  I picked up a nice belt for my kitty DPS set in Bladeangel’s Money Belt.  My kitty set is probably approaching T5 quality.  I need to get some enchants on a few things and pick up a good pair of DPS legs, but that’s about it.  This should help me level when Wrath hits, since I will most likely go feral to level.  I passed on the Staff of Dark Mending, but maybe I should have taken it.  It’s a very, very nice looking staff, but I’m saving up for the Gavel as I mentioned earlier, and I’ve always been a proponent of a one hander and off hand versus a staff.  Besides, after last night I’m up to 125 badges.  Yay!  The other stuff that dropped I paid little attention to, as it was mail or plate or uninteresting to me.  I know our Shammy got a pair of shoulders and another healy mail piece, and some fancy shield dropped off the lynx boss.

So that’s all for now.  I had a great time, got a nice off-spec piece, and a handful of badges.  Next time I hope the Dragonhawk drops my helm! 

Ok, so maybe obligatory is too strong.  Not EVERY blogger posts or talks about their UI, but many do.  Anyhow, I checked the old PTD inbox the other day to find this:

I love your blog; it is incredibly entertaining and informative.

Could you please give me an idea of what add-ons you use? I am particularly interested in your UI adds. I like the simplicity of your UI.

John P. Bacon

First of all, John made the right move by buttering me up first.  If you have a question, it’s best to compliment me first.    Anyhow, it’s not the first time someone has asked about my UI, so let’s get to it.

My UI, like most of yours I’m sure, is a mish mash of different elements tailored to my liking.  The evolution of my UI took place over time.  In the beginning I used Cosmos, which if you’ve never used it is basically an all-inclusive UI mod.  In the early days of WoW, it was one of the only major “mods” out there.  It’s been a long time since I used it, so I’m sure it’s changed a lot over the years.

After I played with Cosmos for a long time, I realized I wanted more flexibility, so I started using CTMod.  It gave me a lot of the things I wanted as far as improving my UI, and it was still fairly close to the default Blizzard UI.

I soon got irritated with CTMod as it never worked right after patches, and not too long ago I heard about Ace Mods, and started using them.  That’s when I started getting serious about modding my UI.  Before that, I had just used bits and pieces to enhance the existing UI, but once I moved to Ace I began to tear the whole thing down and tweak everything.

Here is a shot of my UI as it stands today:

It’s not the most heavily modded UI out there, but it is fairly far from the default UI.  No, I didn’t do any fancy graphics work to tie it all together, I wouldn’t know where to start with that.  I did, however, overhaul it completely.

The Elements of My UI

Red Box:  eePanels

The area in the red box is the background for the bottom of my UI.  I decided I wanted most of the “big” stuff to sit at the bottom of my screen.  eePanels is a mod that I use to create the background box.  I don’t do anything fancy with it, but it helps tie the UI together.

Orange Circles:  Bartender3

Bartender3 is one of the most important parts of my UI.  It’s the mod I use to tweak, nip and tuck all of my action bars.  It’s a very robust addon, and does everything I want it to do.  You’ll notice a box of action bar buttons in the middle left of my screen, that’s where I store most raid/group usable items.  You’ll see drums, pots, my Prayer Book, and other stuff.  I keep it there because I spend so much time clicking on party members in Grid, so it’s easy to hit a pot or whatever when I need it.

Blue Circle:  Elk Buff Bars

Elk Buff Bars is a recent addition to my UI.  It replaces the default buff icons with a list of bars with exact timers.  I like the way it cleans up the look and feel of my UI.

Pink Circle:  PitBull

I use PitBull for a few different unit frames, though not the main party and raid frames.  (I use Grid for that, but more on Grid later.)  I use PitBull for my frame, my target, target of target, pet and other “secondary” unit frames.

Purple Circle:  Quest Helper

Everyone uses Quest Helper by now, right?  Go get it.  It gives me that cool arrow to show me where to find stuff, and gives a better on screen quest tracker.  The only thing I don’t like about it is I sometimes have trouble getting rid of the arrow if I want to.  I don’t need quest waypoints while in a raid for Pete’s sake!

Light Blue Square:  Recount

I use Recount to track my mad DPS (yes, DPS!!), and it fits nicely in that corner of my UI.

Yellow Circle (Yes, I know this isn’t yellow, but I don’t want to make anyone’s eyes bleed, including my own!): XPBar

I mostly put this in because I couldn’t adjust the Bartender3 EXP bar to my liking.  I wanted something more compact yet readable, and XPBar was the ticket.

Map Mod:  Simple Mini Map

I didn’t circle it, as it was already getting too busy down there.  I changed the size, shape and moved my Map with SimpleMiniMap

Green Circle:  Grid

Grid is another mod that I couldn’t live without.  It’s a very compact yet customizable set of raid frames.  I’ve tried Pitbull and others, but nothing beats Grid IMO.  It takes some work to get it set up, but once you do it’s golden.  In this shot I am not in a group, but below is a shot that shows Grid in a 25 man setting.  Keep in mind I have made some tweaks to my UI since this shot, but I haven’t gotten a shot from a 25 man since then.

One other important mod to note that is not in the other shot is HOTCandy.  It’s the set of green bars just below my Grid setup.  This is what I use to keep track of my HOTs on various targets.  You can also see a couple other mods that I use in this shot, like Prat that handles my chat and Omen that I use to monitor threat.  I also use a whole bucket load of FuBar addons that you can see here.  I still use them all, I’ve just now made it so they auto-hide unless I mouse to the top of the screen.  I couldn’t live without all the little things FuBar does for me.  I used to use Titan Panel for this, but like the customizability that FuBar gives me with a smaller memory footprint.

Anyhow, that about does it I think.  I could probably spend another four pages just talking about the different mods I use, but this was more about the mods that make up my UI.  It’s not the fanciest UI out there, but I feel like I accomplished what I wanted to with it.  I wanted to streamline things a bit and open up the viewable area, and I’ve done that.  I hope you like it, and keep those emails coming!

Would Blizzard hear me?  Probably not.  I suppose I thought I could buy my way into beta by writing about the game, but I was wrong.  Anyhow, I don’t really have anything to say, and I thought it was time I wrote a really short post to give people a rest.

My only other thought for now?

Will the mentioned pre-release of some Wrath content kill raiding?

Hey everybody, it’s been awhile since I did one of these posts, but I thought this made for a good idea with some debate potential.  I’m sure we all have boss fights that are memorable to us, and I’m going to take this opportunity to share mine.  This will encompass encounters in both old world WoW and post Burning Crusade WoW.  We’ll start it at the bottom with number five.

#5 Blackheart the Inciter, Shadow Labyrinth

I know a few of you out there my cringe at this choice.  A lot of people hate Blackheart, and for good reason.  His fight can be VERY, VERY chaotic.  Frankly, that’s one of the reasons I like it so much.  I think you’ll see as this post continues that I have an appreciation for unpredictable fights.  I get bored with the standard bosses where a single strat works every time.  I don’t just mean the tank and spank bosses, but any boss where when you’ve got it down, it becomes a trivial fight. 

With Blackheart, a little bad luck on the "Time for fun" mind control phases can wreak havoc on even the most polished five man team.  Maybe you have a rogue in the group, and during the MC phase he goes all out on your priest.  Ouch.  Maybe a lock in the group works the tank over in a bad way.  Maybe a hunter decides to unload on the kitty druid.  Who knows.  There are a lot of ways that things can go wrong, and this fight is ALWAYS at least a little crazy.  That’s why I like it so much.

#4 Zul’Farrak Stairs Event

Back to old world Azeroth for my fourth favorite boss fight.  If you’ve never seen this fight, I’ll try to give you a brief rundown.  Basically, you climb to the top of a troll Incan pyramid style thingy to free a few prisoners.  You then fight alongside these NPCs at the top of the stairs as you try to fend off wave after wave of mobs, culminating in a boss you have to take down.  This is another fight I note for its chaotic nature.  I like it when things are a little out of control, it keeps me on my toes.  If you’ve never done ZF in a level appropriate group, you are missing out. 

This event also includes a nice bit of story with a traitorous twist at the end.  Well worth the price of admission.  ZF can also be noted as a whole as both a quick and well-designed instance.

#3 Priestess Delrissa, Magisters’ Terrace

I told you I liked chaos, and the chaos explodes in this tough fight in MagT.  With this fight Blizzard attempted to create a PvP style fight, similar to Moroes in Kara and the Hex Lord fight in ZA.  Delrissa spawns with four cronies of different "classes" that you must take down.  The mix of classes in her crew has serious repercussions in terms of the fight’s difficulty.  The right group can make it cake, the wrong group can make it a headache.  It has a good level of challenge, which is one of the reasons I rank it so high.  There are nights we have one shot this encounter, and there are nights where it took us 5 or more attempts.

Another reason I am fond of this fight is because it is one of the few events in group play where I get to use ALL of my tools.  And I often have to use all of those tools to succeed.  I rarely use cyclone, but bust it out with impunity here.  If the rogue comes my way, he can make quick work of me, but a well-timed cyclone can shut him down in a hurry.  I also often spend this fight both healing and contributing where I can to DPS.  Sometimes the small amount of damage I can add makes all the difference.  The moral of the story is that everyone has to contribute whatever they can in this fight.  Blizzard did an excellent job of making Delrissa’s cronies VERY good at what they do, for AI at least. 

#2 Harbinger Skyriss, Arcatraz

This is a fight where everything works together very well.  It makes a ton of sense in terms of the overall instance "story arc".  It is also both challenging and entertaining.  I’m a big fan of Arcatraz overall, and I’m a little disappointed that people don’t run it more.  It can be a very long instance, and people generally like to stick to the quick and dirty ones when possible.

If you’ve never run this instance, do it now.  I’ll wait.  Millhouse Manastorm is what makes this fight memorable.  His one-liners during the fight really make it a far better experience.  The fight itself is interesting, but the addition of a funny little NPC gnome mage puts it over the top. My favorite line from Millhouse?  "Aaalllriiiight!! Who ordered up an extra large can of whoop-ass?"

Every time I get to the end of Arcatraz – and it’s not all that often – I wonder why people don’t run the instance more often.  Oh well. 

#1 Dire Maul Tribute Run

I know I know.  This isn’t 100% technically a "boss fight."  But I couldn’t let this one go.  If you joined the WoW craze after Burning Crusade, chances are you’ve never had the pleasure of doing a DM Tribute run.  Perhaps you’ve heard the old-timers wax nostalgic about this old world encounter.   

For you post-BC babies, here’s the rundown on the "Tribute Run."  Basically, the tribute run consists of running through Dire Maul North without killing any bosses but the king himself.  You need to use several tricks to accomplish this, including fixing a huge frost trap to freeze one boss, and creating and then donning an Ogre suit to fool another.  If you successfully ran the instance without killing anyone but the king, you received the Gordok Tribute (hence the name), a chest with a high quality reward for each boss you did NOT kill.  The other bonus is that you could then go back and talk to the bosses you did not kill (as after killing the King you are named the new King, and all the ogres become friendly) to receive some nice buffs. 

I ran this many, many times in the days before BC, as for me it was the most fun to be had at level 60.  The loot was pretty darn good, too.  I nearly always logged on with the same phrase in guild chat, "Anyone up for a Tribute run?"

Conclusion

One of the interesting things about this list is that when I started to rank my favorite fights, it was all BC bosses.  I suppose it was a product of recent familiarity more than anything.  As I spent more time, however, I started to remember the old world instance fights that I loved so much.  In the end, I probably could have done a separate list for Azeroth and BC.

There are probably a few repeating themes in my selections.  Uniqueness of the encounter, difficulty and predictability.  All of those are important to me.  I’ve played this game for over 4 years now, and I like encounters that "mix things up" a bit.  If it was all about loot and progression, I would have quit long, long ago.

Very briefly, here are a few that missed the cut.  Kael’Thas in MagT, VanCleef in The Deadmines and the married couple in Arcatraz.  Kael almost made the grade based on the difficulty and chaotic nature of the fight.  VC was in the running for nostalgia, as he was the first boss I had the pleasure of taking down.  The Married couple (Dalliah and Soccothrates) in Arc almost made it based on their funny quips, my favorite being from Soccothrates when the group pulls Dalliah, "Have you come to kill Dalliah? Can I watch?"

That’s all for now.  I’d love to hear what some of YOUR favorite boss fights are and why.  Perhaps in the future I’ll address raid bosses.

They will tell you it can’t be done.  They will tell you that if you don’t raid at least 3 times a week, you’ll never see any success.

They tried and failed?
They tried and died.

They will say that you can’t learn the advanced encounters, that you’ll hold the group back.  They will tell you "show up 80% of the time, or don’t show up at all."

Lies, all lies.  And I am here to prove it.

One of the questions I often get asked is this:  "PTD, how do you do it?  How do you raid part-time like you do?"  Well, today I’ll try to give you some insight as to how I accomplish this seemingly impossible feat, and give some recommendations on how you can do it yourself.  Without further adieu, here are my five keys to casual raiding.

Key #1:  FOCUS!

It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.

The first key is simple.  To be a successful casual raider, you MUST have one character that is geared to the hilt, and raid-ready above and beyond any other character.  The more hard-core out there can afford to gear multiple characters for raiding, but for casuals like us, we need to focus.  In time, you can slowly gear another toon, but do NOT do it at the expense of your main. 

The problem with this key is that as a casual player you probably have a LOT of alts.  I know I have every slot filled with characters level 8 to 63, and I’m sure I’m not alone.  They key, though, is that my Druid is in very good shape.  I didn’t even attempt to start 25 man raiding until I was fully equipped in epics, with proper gemming and enchants. 

If you are going to try to raid only one night a week like I do, that one character better be good, very good.  Don’t get too wrapped up in gearing alts.  Make a decision on a main and stick to it.

Key #2:  Be Overly Prepared

Shield Practice.
Gurney, we had practice this morning. I’m not in the mood. 
Not in the mood? Mood’s a thing for cattle and loveplay, not fighting!

Similar to Key #1, you can’t afford to mess around in terms of knowledge, either.  You aren’t going to have the same number of attempts to learn about the various boss encounters, so be as ready as you can be.  To counter that, do your homework.  Read a few different strategy guides for the bosses you expect to see.  Watch at least one video, but if you can view a few different ones from different perspectives.  Admittedly, there is no replacement for actual in-game experience – but you need to get as close as you can. 

Also, make a point of being that guy that’s always early for raid night.  Make sure your gear is repaired, and make sure you are fully equipped with pots, oils, food, elixirs – everything.  Don’t be the guy that asks for a summons 2 minutes after the raid was supposed to start, or who asks if anyone has any healing pots.  Be there and be ready.  Be an example, and you’ll have a better chance of being invited back in the future.

One other thing regarding preparation is this:  don’t be afraid to ask questions.  If you show you’re actually interested in getting things right, the raid leaders will notice.

Key #3:  Be Honest About Your Availability

As the new Duke, I hereby invite you to ask me for whatever you wish. You may request anything of me, anything at all.

This part is just as important as the others.  When you are looking at raiding, make sure you are honest with the raid leaders about your availability.  Be honest with yourself, too.  Don’t say you can make 2 nights a week when you can only REALLY commit to one.  Don’t say you can make a 5:30 raid time if that’s the time you walk in the door after work. 

The point is to make things as clear as possible, before you even get an invite to any raids.  Don’t write any checks with your mouth that your butt can’t cash.  Chances are, they may already be hesitant about you and your limited availability, so don’t say you can do something you can’t.  On the nights you CAN raid, be utterly reliable.  If you can make EVERY Wednesday night raid, make sure the raid leader knows that.

This can also be important if you have issues similar to mine.  My wife wants nothing to do with WoW, and I have an 18 month old and another baby on the way.  I am VERY clear with her with regards to the nights that I raid.  She knows and accepts that Saturday nights I will get on the game before 8 PM, and she’s ok with that. 

Key #4:  Be Open to Other Raiding Avenues

I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when my fear is gone I will turn and face fear’s path, and only I will remain.

You must be reliable if you are to raid casually, but you also might have to be flexible.  I know it’s frightening to think of, but there are in fact 25 man PUGs that happen all the time.  Don’t be afraid to give them a try if that’s your best way to see that content.  Perhaps in the course of PUG raiding you will find other people with similar schedules.  Maybe that can lead to a more established raiding group.  If you’re not raiding at all right now, it’s at least worth a try.

Also be sure to ask around and see if there are guilds out there that are open to outside members to fill their raids.  Use the official boards to look for guilds that may be doing that.  Believe me, there are MANY guilds out there that can’t quite fill a 25 man, and they’d love to have a reliable fill-in.  Maybe you can find a group that suits your playtime, and since you are so utterly prepared (See Key #1 and #2), your success will net you future invites. 

Key #5:  Perform

I’m dead to everyone unless I become what I may be.

Above all else, this is the true key.  Beyond preparation, reliability, and flexibility lie skill and performance.  If you have any dreams of being able to raid on YOUR schedule, you had darn well better perform when you get the chance.  You’re like the rookie that gets one shot during a pre-season game to show your stuff.  Make sure you show it.  You can’t afford to make big mistakes or even little ones, you have to show that you have the goods from the first pull.

Don’t randomly go afk.

Don’t ignore the orders of the raid leader.

Don’t break sheeps, AOE in a bad place, pull aggro, or let someone die.

Basically, don’t do anything stupid.  Be as close to perfect as you can be.  If you show that you can handle the job, you’ll get the job.  I am normally way down the healing totem pole in terms of gear.  My +heal, MP5 and everything else are usually bringing up the rear, or close to it.  I still routinely lead the meters in terms of overall healing.  I think one of the reasons for this is that I get so focused about the one night I raid a week.  I make a point to get everything right, because in some way I have to.  If we fail repeatedly because of me, I would feel like I let a lot of people down.  So I make a point not to do that.  I mean business when I’m raiding, and the raid leader(s) know that.  My skill and overall performance trump my gear.

There you have it.  If you’re looking to raid casually, that’s my advice.  Focus on one character, be prepared, be honest, be open, and, most important of all, perform.  If you follow my advice, I don’t know how any raid leader could turn you down, regardless of how seldom you can raid.  The point of all of this is to assure you that it CAN be done.  I raid one night a week for four hours.  That’s it.  I’ve seen 5 bosses in SSC, 4 in Mount Hyjal, and 4 in the Black Temple.  So don’t listen to "them" when they say it can’t be done.  They’re just jealous is all.  Thanks for reading!

It’s hard to believe, I know.  Your friendly neighborhood tree, all Bear-Butted out, tanking Moroes.  So hard to believe, in fact, that it could only be true. 

Anyhow, here is how it happened.  I didn’t have anything going on last night, and I had a good 3-4 hours to kill in game, so I joined the Kara LFG channel.  That usually ends bad, I know, but I need badges for the Gavel of Naaru Blessings and most of the guild was otherwise indisposed. 

I got an invite fairly quickly, as my note advertised me as a Resto Druid with 1923 Healing.  Should be sufficient for Kara.    I did a quick lookup on WoW Heroes of the person who had invited me, and I really liked what I saw.  A strong tank goes a long way.

So we’re trying to fill, trying to fill.  We have tanks, we have healers, we need DPS.  Though I had a hunter I could have brought, I really wanted badges with the Druid, so I stuck to my guns.  After about 20 minutes the RL asked if I would be willing to respec and DPS.  Why not? 

Next thing I know, I’m the OT for the night.  The other warrior in the group turned out to be pure fury, and he didn’t even have a shield if he wanted to OT.  The MT was VERY strong, so I figured what the hey.  I tanked.  Here are pics to prove it:

I felt a little bad for the healers, as I don’t have the most HPs around.  That’s one area I’d have to really improve in my Bear gear.  I have the defense and other stats, but the health is lacking.

Still, we got the job done.  I also got to tank all kinds of other good stuff, along with Romulo.  The MT did most of the heavy lifting, thankfully.

Yeah, that’s right.  Thankfully the tank was very strong, and we did just fine with me as the OT.  We made it all the way to the Shade, but it was 3 am and myself and others were too tired to finish him off.  Oh well.  Still, I had a great time, and managed to snag a couple staves while I was there.  In the interests of summarizing, here is what I got:

• Staff of Infinite Mysteries
• Terestian’s Stranglestaff

Not bad at all!  I’ve been looking to pick of the staff of Illhoof for awhile, and the other staff looks like it might be the start of my Boomkin off-set.  It seems I’m headed towards true druidism, the ability to play any spec.    That’s all for now, thanks for reading!

That was the scene last night.  Some of you have been to ZA, some of you haven’t.  If you haven’t, that’s what it looks like just before the pull of Zul’jin, the last boss in Zul’Aman. 

If you recall, I wrote about ZA a few months back.  If you don’t want to go back and read, basically what that post addressed is the difficulty of ZA in comparison to Karazhan.  When ZA was first announced, a lot of people thought it would be a case of linear progression, you finish Kara a few times, then move on to ZA.

They were wrong.  As it turns out, ZA is just flat-out too difficult for a Kara geared group.  I suppose I should pull back on that a little, as it is POSSIBLE with a Kara geared group, it would just be incredibly frustrating and filled with wipes. 

So what is it that makes ZA so tough in comparison to Kara?  Well, first the trash is a LOT tougher to deal with.  There are a couple parts in the instance where you have to run through a "gauntlet", and it can be very difficult to get through.  There are times you have to deal with wave after wave of mobs, and you can easily get overwhelmed.  In Kara, everything is quite easily controlled.  You position the raid in one spot that is safe, and the tank pulls back to you.  Easy cheesy.  It’s not that easy in ZA.  The one very nice thing about ZA trash is there is a lot less of it overall.

So what about the bosses?  The boss fights in ZA are on par with a lot of what I’ve seen in T5 content.  Some of them last almost as long, too.  Sure, the bear boss is easy enough to deal with, and once you learn a couple of tricks the Eagle boss is pretty straightforward as well.  But then you start getting into bosses like the Dragonhawk or Malacrass, and the whole game changes.  You need strength in your group all around for these fights, and a solid plan of action.  This is not your mother’s tank and spank Prince fight.

So, all that stuff aside, is ZA fun?  You’re darn skippy it is.  When I wrote the above linked article, I was just barely getting out of Kara myself.  ZA still seemed like a waste of time for me, as the times I went I died over and over and over again.  To trash.

Now, things are a little different.  I’ve seen a great deal of T5 and T6, I’ve geared up significantly, and now the challenges of ZA have paled somewhat.  I can pump out a lot more healing, and take at least one or two more hits before I go down.  PTD’s all growed up since he first set foot in ZA, and much of the group I was in was T5+ equipped as well.

Now when I look at the instance, I see the kind of challenge I get in T6 content for a 10 man group.  Kara is a snoozefest nowadays, which is why I do stuff like try to solo heal the place.  Besides the healthy challenge, there are some very nice drops I could use.

So how did we do last night?  Well, we got to Zul’jin, but didn’t take him down.  Myself and the other 2 healers were fairly new to the place, so overall we did well.  We only took two shots at ZJ since we were already past the raid time when we got to him.  That Eagle phase of his is nasty, I’ll say that much.

As far as the timer thing, we only managed the first.  We wiped on the trash leading to the Eagle boss as we didn’t have a Pally tank.  Our Pally healer had to try to deal with all the birdies, and he went down.  On the second attempt at that gauntlet the same pally healer died again, but towards the end and we made it through.  Then he had to release and run back, and he got lost on the way.  So no second timer for us. 

Oh well.  At least the first timer netted me the Life-step Belt.  And with that I said my final goodbyes to the Windhawk set.  The belt was the last piece I was still wearing.  Into the bank it goes, where if I ever decide to try out a Moonkin spec I will regem it for that.  I also managed to pick up that froggy pet.

Still, we did make our way all the way to Zul’jin, which is pretty good considering all the healers were basically new.  That Malacrass is one bad mutha.  If you haven’t seen the fight, just think of a Moroes fight on steroids. 

One other note is that I managed to crest 4 million in overall healing.  That’s a lot of HOTs, man!  I don’t know if I’ve hit 4 million before, but here’s a screeny to prove it. (My recount is in the lower right)

In all, it was a very fun night.  I like a good challenge, and ZA provided that, with some good rewards.  While I don’t see a Bear mount in my future, I can see myself running this quite a few more times before Wrath hits.  There are still some very nice items I’d like to see, and at my gear level it’s a little more fun than Kara.  If anything, I think I’ve perhaps proven my previous post to be true:  ZA is basically a 10-man for bored T5 and T6 raiding guilds.  I just wish Blizzard had told us that in the first place.

Oh, sorry…that’s supposed to be Shade of Akama.  Well, anyway, we hit BT again this Saturday, and started with this guy.  We waxed him like a level 25 in STV on a PvP server.  It was nasty.  Ok, maybe it wasn’t THAT bad, because it did in fact take two attempts.  Anyhow, this is how it went down.

We used three tanks.  One on each door to handle adds, and one Bear in the middle of the room to handle those other whatchamacallit guys.  My job was to roll HOTs on both the Druid tank and the Tank on one wall.  There is an easy place to stand where this wasn’t a problem. 

So we start the fight up, and the healing is surprisingly pretty easy, especially compared to the Supremus fight before that.  As it turns out, wires of communication got crossed in some way, and the tank on the other side wasn’t getting enough healing and he went down.  So the RL called a wipe and we all gathered by the Bear tank to corpse up. 

If you are ever in a wipe situation on that fight, it takes a LONG time.  The fight revolves around the real Akama trying to kill the Shade of Akama.  Akama is one bad mofo, as it took a good 2 minutes for all the mobs to beat him down after we were all dead.  I sent him a guild invite afterwards, but he turned me down.  I’d like to have him as a tank.

Anyhow, we figured out the whole in our strategy and rejiggered it a little.  It turned into one of those situations where I was surprised that things were going so well.  I kept listening to the reports from the DPSers on the progress against the channelers that hold the Shade in place.  (If you’ve seen the Leo fight in SSC, it’s basically like that.  The boss, in this case the Shade of Akama, is being banished or held by a group of casters.) 

Before I knew it, all the channelers were dead and the Shade was on his way to engage with Akama.  The whole point is that Akama is there to take down the Shade and restore some sense of balance to his people.  Or something. 

Once the Shade is free and engages Akama, everything is out the window.  No threat to worry about, and not a lot of damage to heal.  So I pulled out my trump card, my Ace in the hole, my golden ticket…mad Resto Druid DPESSSSSSS.  You’ve seen it before.  Here it is again.

Oh yeah, baby.  You see those numbers.  All Wrath, All the Time.  In this case, I was actually expected to contribute, as you have to get the Marshmallow down REALLY fast or he does something bad.  I don’t know what it is, but I’m sure it involves a massive wipe of the raid.  

With my 1k Wrath hits flowing, the Marshmallow met his end.  I must say, I’d rank him as probably the easiest boss I’ve seen since Attumen.  And it’s nice that he drops T6 loot.  I thought the Void Reaver was the loot Pinata, I’ve gotta nominate the Shade of Akama for that title.  Anyhow, once he goes down, there is a nifty little cut-scene wherein Akama does some magic HooHa and turns all the red mobs that were in his area green.  It certainly helped later when we were wiping on Gorefiend.

Here we are celebrating over his corpse.

There was loot, including a decent pair of cloth healing shoulders. I would have considered them, but there were a couple priests above me on the SK list. No biggie, real healers wear leather.

That was the fun part.

Correction, that was the end of the fun part.

After that we headed on to Teron Gorefiend.  Before we really get into this, let’s see some pretty pictures, shall we? 

Now, I was prepared.  I had heard many times that Gorefiend is the first real "idiot" check in BT.  The reason is that EVERY raider must be prepared to handle the whole weird constructs thing.  I won’t get into details, but basically you get a debuff that kills you in 1 minute or something.  When you die, you spawn as a banshee/ghost thing and are surrounded by these construct mobs.  You have to kill them with special abilities you only get when a ghost.  Nobody can kill these constructs EXCEPT ghosts. 

They, however, can certainly kill the other members of the raid.

Anyhow, it’s like a mini-game, you against them, and if you can’t take them down, they get into the raid and start tearing people apart. 

It’s bad.

Hell, someone even came up with a FLASH game so you can practice killing your constructs.  If you need out of game training, it must be tough. 

And it is.  Basically 2 people get this debuff every, I don’t know, 30 seconds or so.  They have to go die in a specific location that makes it easier for them to try to hold off their constructs.  In our 5 or 6 attempts, some people were able to do it, some weren’t.  I never got a real chance to try, as every time I got the debuff we were already pretty much stewed.

However, from a positive prospective we did notice we got him down to about 40% without successfully holding off a single wave of constructs!  By my math that means we only need to hold off 2 or maybe 3 waves to kill him and take his T6 tokens.  (Ooooohhh….T6 armor….can you hear me salivating?)

So, we didn’t get it done, but I think we can.  A lot of people got a look at the whole construct thing, and that should help us next time we go in.  I think there’s a good chance that the Wednesday night crew will start taking down the first 3 bosses, and then we’ll start every Saturday at Teron.  We’ll see.

So PTD’s adventures in the Black Temple continue.  So far, so good.  I’ve seen a lot of wipes, but I’ve also been there for 2 of our "first kills," Supremus and the Shade of Akama.  In two weeks time (since ’tis MH this week) hopefully I’ll have another one or two "first kills" under my belt.  Until next time!

One of the first posts that really put me on the blogging map was Resto Druid:  5 Things You Should Know.  It was the first post I wrote that got a real reaction from the community.  Phaelia did me a huge favor by posting her reaction to my post on her blog.  It expanded my readership significantly, and it also taught me something:  people did read my blog.  I wrote the initial post in all of about fifteen minutes, just trying to "get something up" for the day, and didn’t give it a whole lot of thought.

That was a mistake.  A big one.

Phaelia’s reaction wasn’t exactly positive, and other bloggers like Runycat had adverse reactions to the post as well.  Honestly, I can’t blame them.  In a lot of ways I showed my early weaknesses as a blogger.  I was too harsh on the class I love, and in a lot of ways I was ill-informed as well.

Since then, I’ve grown a lot both as a druid in game and as a blogger in real life.  For a long time I’ve wanted to do an update to the post with some of my new key thoughts on the druid class, and that time is now.  So without further hesitation, let’s get it started.  Here are five ways to get the most out of a Resto Druid.

Use Your Versatility

The Resto Druid is very versatile.  IMO, they are second only to Priests in terms of versatility.  The Druid goes about things differently, but is also very capable of filling multiple roles. 

Druids, of course, make excellent tank healers.  Rolling LB, Rejuv and Regrowth on the tanks can make all the difference in tough fights.  If I only have to roll my array of HOTs on one tank, I can very easily handle a good deal of raid healing at the same time.  I have successfully ran as the only healer in Kara.  It wasn’t a spotless run, but I got the job done with minimal wipes. 

In a multi tank situation, I can fairly easily roll triple lifeblooms and rejuv on two separate tanks, and if necessary I can roll lifebloom on as many as five tanks at a time.  That’s some pure healing power. 

In a raid healing situation, Druids can do pretty well too.  They can’t compete with a Resto Shammy or a CoH Priest, but they can certainly hold their own.  While our single group heal is largely situational, we can throw multiple instant HOTs quickly, and help out with Regrowth as well. 

Druids can fill any healing role, and don’t let anyone tell you different.  I have led the healing meters while healing the MT, and I have led the meters while raid healing.

Use Your Mods

I’ll preface this by saying you can effectively heal using no mods at all.  You can use standard targeting methods and standard casting methods and be successful.  I don’t think I could live without my healing mods, though.  Here are a few you might want to think about.

Grid

Grid is a raid frame mod along the lines of Pitbull.  People have varying preferences when it comes to raid frames modifications.  Some people love Pitbull, some love Xperl, some love Grid.  Me?  I’ll take Grid.  The reason I am so fond of Grid is it’s compactness.  It gives me ALL the info I need in a relatively small area, especially when it comes to 25 man raids.  One of the keys to good healing is being able to heal the proper targets as quickly as possible.  Preferably by anticipating their damage.  With Grid, I can switch healing targets in a flash, and it doesn’t take up too much precious screen real estate.  In this screenshot you can see how I have Grid set up, it’s on the upper left side of my UI. 

Grid and other raid frame mods usually take a bit of time to set up to your liking, but they are well worth it.  I can track literally everything I need to track in that tiny package, and it works VERY well with my next mod…

Clique

Clique is a casting mod that allows you to cast your spells on a specific target by clicking on their raid frame or portrait or whatever.  What happens is if I want to cast lifebloom on the tank, I just left click on the tank.  I have all the spells that I really need bound to different combinations.  Here is how I have Clique set up.

• Left Click:  Lifebloom
• Right Click:  Rejuvenation
• Ctr+Left Click:  Regrowth
• Ctr+Right Click:  Swiftmend
• Alt+Left Click:  Nature’s Swiftness
• Alt+Right Click:  Healing Touch (I hold down alt and left click then right click for a VERY fast, big heal)
• Shift+Left Click:  Abolish Poison
• Shift+Right Click:  Innervate
• Ctr+Alt+Left Click: Remove Curse
• Ctr+Alt+Right Click:  Rebirth (The best way there is to Battle Rez)

This makes my healing fast, very fast.  I spend a good deal of time hovering over the raid frame of my next target awaiting the GCD.  It might look intimidating at first, but it’s now second nature to me.

HOTCandy

Just about any HOT timer will work, but as a Resto Druid you want to make sure that your LB stacks keep on rolling.  A good timer works great in that regard.  You can see my timer in that above screenshot just under the Grid interface.

Now, there are many more useful mods, but those are the most important, IMO.  I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 or more mods, and at least 20 of those are there to make my job as a healer easier.

Use Your Healing Tools

All of them.  I was guilty of being limited early on, and I didn’t use all my tools.  There was a time, and I hate to admit it, that I NEVER used Swiftmend.  I didn’t quite understand how the spell worked, or how effective it could be.  In my defense, this was early on in my career as a healer.  Now, I couldn’t live without Swiftmend.  It’s one of our most powerful tools for delivering a lot of healing quickly.  It’s cooldown is a mere 15 seconds, so use it early and use it often.  I’ve come across a few druids that NEVER use it, and I make a point to suggest they start.

Another big tool to make sure you use is Nature’s Swiftness.  Coupled with Healing Touch, this is our biggest possible instant heal.  The cooldown is 5 minutes, so don’t bother always trying to "save" it for the biggest, near wipe situations.  Maybe if you had used it earlier you wouldn’t be in that situation!  Almost without fail, the times I most often hear "good healing" from a group member or tank is when I just blew my NS+HT combo to give them a blast of 5k plus health instantly, usually when they were sure they were about to die.  Don’t ignore it.

Another spell you shouldn’t be afraid to use is Rebirth.  Yeah, I know, 20 minute cooldown.  It’s a bummer.  Just remember that the earlier you use it, the earlier it will be available again.  You don’t have to reserve this for the final boss all the time.  I’ve saved a raid in more than one situation by my ability to quickly battle rez a key player.

There is one last healing tool that I want to be sure to call out — mobility.  Nobody can heal on the move like a druid, regardless of the run speed debuff of tree form.  You can still cast your most important heals while running around.  Take advantage of it.  Don’t be afraid to roam a little and get a different view of the situation.  It can also help identify when someone is in trouble.  You aren’t nailed to one spot, get moving!  Priests, Pallys and Shammys are all stuck, you are not!

Don’t Pass on Off-Spec Pickups

This is less important, but if something you could potentially use is going to be sharded, don’t be afraid to speak up!  You never know, maybe some day you’ll want to go Boomkin to shake things up.  Maybe you’ll want to try to OT Kara some day.  Who knows.  You can use a lot of different gear types, don’t let them end up as shards.  Heck, I tanked my first Heroic this past weekend (I’ll post about it in detail later) just by using the assorted tanking pieces I’ve picked up along the way.  I also found that my Cat gear is REALLY, REALLY good.  I’m almost up to par for T5 content in my off-spec kitty gear!

Numbers Aren’t Everything

Skill can make a huge difference in your performance.  I know, I’m living proof.  Because of my casual, part-time play style, I’m more often then not one of the "least" geared healers in any given run.  That doesn’t stop me from being in the top three for overall healing nearly every time.  Don’t get too hung up with your +heal number as a reflection of your healing ability.  A highly skilled 800 heal Druid can easily out-heal a less-skilled 1200 heal Druid.  I’ve done it.  (Though my days of 800 heal are far behind me.)  This doesn’t mean that numbers mean nothing, just that they don’t mean everything.  You do have to have decent gear to succeed in the end game, but you can make up for gear deficiencies by using all your tools.  High level purples sure do look nice, but they don’t do the healing for you. 

Conclusion

And there you have it.  Undoubtedly I could keep this post going, to 10 or 15 or beyond.  But you don’t have all day now, do you?  I love druids, I love their versatility, and I’m fairly confident that my druid will ALWAYS be my main because of that.  I’m glad I was finally able to re-address my class in a more positive way, and I hope you found this post useful.  Later this week I’ll talk about my first Heroic Tanking experience, as well as our progress in BT over the weekend.  Thanks for reading!

I’ve been strictly resto spec’d for a long time.  The vast majority of my time as a level 70 Druid has been spent as a healer.  I enjoy healing, I consider myself a strong asset in raids, and I will always be a healer first.

Last night, however, I switched sides, at least for a day or so.  Through my days of raiding, when I saw the first 5 bosses in SSC over and over again, and farmed Kara many times for badges, I made a point to pick up any cat or bear gear that would have been sharded otherwise.  I hate to see a purple go to waste.  So over time, I have gathered a fairly respectable, albeit imperfect, set of gear for tanking.  I have the Heavy Clefthoof set, of course, and I also have some very nice epics to fill things out.  Heck, I have the best tanking weapon for a Bear in the game, I may as well put it to use sometime, right?

I do still have some issues.  I obviously haven’t concentrated much on slots, I’ve just picked up stuff that dropped.  I’m presently sporting a DPS helm and shoulders, and a green pair of bracers.  So I have some spots to fill.  Last night, I was half tempted to pick up the nice badge tanking bracers, but luckily remembered the whole point of going feral.

Farming for badges.

It seems, at least on my server, that the hardest class to get a hold of for heroics is a tank.  We seem to have more than enough healers willing to do the job, and of course more than enough DPSers, we just don’t have all that many tanks. 

So, I figure, why not?

I headed to Darn, picked up all my tanking pieces from the bank, and hit the druid trainer.  My cost to respec had bottomed out to 15g, so no big deal.  (I will have to respec again on Saturday for BT, however.)  I carefully chose my talents, and ended up with 0/47/14 or something like that.  I’m pretty sure I hit all the key talents for tanking, and threw in the DPS talents as well.

I put on all my bear gear, and took a look at my stats.

• 11.4k Health (A little low, but should be doable for a lot of easier heroics with a good healer methinks – this is completely unbuffed, though, I didn’t even have Mark up.)
• 20,800 some armor
• 20.33% Dodge
• 417 Defense (Yay!  No crits!  This is one thing I reworked the gems a bit to achieve.)
• 1600ish Attack Power

Not bad.  I spent the next half hour or so setting up a tanking bar, as it had been a LONG time since I tanked. 

By the time I was done, though, I was yawning.  It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to tank a heroic for the first time fairly tired.  I had stayed up later than usual to watch the Bears get beat by the Chiefs, and then to watch the So You Think You Can Dance finale.  Yes, I’m a sports nerd, and a lot of other nerds rolled into one.  My name is PTD, and I am a gaming nerd, blogging nerd, sports nerd (go Cubs and Bears!), reality TV nerd (especially Gordon Ramsay) and a Bowling nerd.  Beat that!  Oh, and if you ever want to get pwned on the lanes, give me a ring.

Anyhow, I elected not to try to get anything going, but logged off in Shatt with the SP daily heroic saved.  I plan to start with either that or Ramparts.  SP has classically been known as the "easiest" heroic, but I think I might prefer to do Ramps first, as I have a more solid understanding of how all the pulls work.  Hopefully tonight I get a shot at my first tanked heroic, and I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes.  Who knows, maybe I’ll love it and finally be everything my class could be.  A Tank, Healer or DPS, whatever you need, for any situation.

Next I’ll have to look at my DPS gear overall.  I know I have a nice epic chest from SSC!