Bear Guide On The Way

Ok, so I started out today working on a Bear Guide for 5.0 today.  However, during research for the guide, I realized that some of my own assumptions were wrong and that I was not rolling cooldowns correctly.  I do understand now how to do it properly and the limits on those cooldowns, but I am out of town for a staff meeting tonight and will not be home until tomorrow night.  At that time I will go whip up on a training dummy for a bit and test out my rotation before completing the guide.

Of course, you guys could just go out and find the information for yourselves, and I wouldn’t blame you if you did.  But I’ve dug into some pretty hairy math numbers and charts and crap.  I will link a lot of the information into the guide, but most of what will be displayed as the guide itself will be the “got to know” junk to keep your Bear butt alive.

This new active mitigation tanking for MoP is going to be fun, I think.  However, I do feel that it is going to require cooperative tanks working together to maximize both their mitigations for peak efficiency.  I’ll explain some of that in the guide post.

And for those wondering about a Resto guide, it’ll come eventually.  Right now there hasn’t been a lot of changes in the Resto world, and the few changes that have been made I haven’t had a chance to test out.  Either my addon is broken atm or I can’t level to 90 to play with new talents. 

Until the guide, then.

New Arrival

Thankyou Goose, for the warm welcome.

         Allow me to introduce myself.  On WoW I go by the name Phoenix.  As Goose previously stated, I’ve been playing the game now with him for the past couple of years and I’ve been a real life friend of his even longer than that.  Over the years, we’ve had a lot of great moments and a lot of moments of total fail as we went along through our instances and quests.  Prior to Goose joining the community, I started out as a Druid on the realm of Sen’jin back in February of 2008, so I never got the chance to do the content of Vanilla and BC in their prime years.  Since my start, I’ve gone all over the place from Maelstrom to Horde on Kul Tiras and Daggerspine along with Cenarion Circle where Goose started out and once gain back to Alliance on Sen’jin. 

          If I recall correctly, I started leveling a Discipline Priest around when Goose was leveling his first character being his Druid.  He was a bit surprised to see I put the money together to transfer my Priest to his server.  At that point the Priest kind of grew on me and I noticed myself playing that character a lot more than my Druid, so starting in Cataclysm I more or less put my Druid up on a shelf for a bit.  I must say, that was a deadly combination of healers back in the day between Goose and myself.  I still laugh every time I think about our raid leader calling him and telling him to get his tank healer back in the raid group.  It was funny, because we also had the lowest gear scores in the entire raid, by most considered too low to even enter ICC. 

            Since then I’ve broadened my knowledge to include Paladins, Shamans, Death knights and I’ve got a Rogue at about level 67.  That said, my primary area of expertise mostly revolves around Druids and Priests.  As we draw closer to the expansion I’ve debated more and more which character I should level first.  The vote goes between my Paladin, Priest, and Druid, all of which I’m quite fond of.  I haven’t had a lot of time lately between work and college courses to play, but I hope to get a feel for the changes with each class before the expansion actually drops. When I finally do, I’ll continue to put my perspective of each class I play up on the blog.  I’m sure Goose and I will have conversations and get feedback from each other as we go along.  But until my next update, thanks for the welcome.  Happy blogging.

Phoenix

Bring On The Phoenix!

Ok, on a more serious note, I’ve decided to bring on a buddy of mine to help write stuff for the blog. Not only is it boring, I’m sure, the read through just my own rantings, I’m hoping to bring in perspectives on other classes.

Phoenix is a long-time friend of mine outside of WoW. We have leveled and raided together in the past, and at one point even lead up a guild together. He also has a druid, so I’m interested to see what all he will have to say about some of the new changes coming. On top of his druid, he has several other max-level characters and will hopefully be able to offer some insight into those classes. Among his other characters is a Discipline Priest, which should prove to be a compliment to my own Holy Priest that is currently sitting at level 79. I hope to have her maxed out in the next week or two and then begin writing about her more.

So everyone give Phoenix a warm welcome.

Pucker Moments: Well, At Least He Trusts Me

So here’s a bit of comic relief.  I was in LFR the other day running a guildy through.  Killercroc, as I’ve mentioned before, has been strictly DPS/Tank in the past.  He decided to try his hand at healing on his Paladin, so off he went to get gear.  Once his gear got good enough, I queued up with him in LFR to see how his healing was doing.  Overall?  Pretty dang good for a guy that likes to stand in fire just because he can.

So we’re on Spine of Deathwing and I’m main-tanking on my Pally (yes, I have a Tankadin).  The off-tank acted like he knew what he was doing, so I let him “handle” the bloods.  Note the sarcasm in that statement.  Not sure if he had ever worked adds before, but they were going everywhere.  Everywhere?  Everywhere.

“How did the adds get out of hand, Goose?”

Well, another ingenious thing happened at the beginning of the fight:  the DPS killed 2 tentacles at the beginning of the fight.  So once I positioned the first Amalg and got good and settled in for the spanking part of this tank and spank routine, suddenly we had another Amalg running lose in the raid.  Awesome.  So I taunted the bad boy over and, much to my pleasure, the DPS only focused on the first Amalg.  I was overjoyed.

But then I noticed a problem coming up on the horizon.  Two Amalgs, lots of dead bloods, and the main tank is usually the one to move the Amalg around to pick up the dead bloods to make the Amalg go supernova.  See the problem yet?

With the way that the bloods were currently running everywhere in the raid, and the off-tank tanking what few bloods he had ON TOP of me, I knew I wouldn’t be able to communicate any sort of battle plan with him and it work.  But then an idea hit me:  Killer is a healer…wearing plate.  And Holy Pallies don’t have to shapeshift to taunt like my Resto Druid does.  I ran the simulation through my head a hundred times and could not find a flaw.  I smiled to myself with confidence as I came over Vent.

Chat Time: Healing Dummies? I’ll Take 24

So I came across an article on WoW Insider this morning before heading to work.

http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/08/21/healers-need-something-like-the-raid-dummies

The article discusses something I’ve dreamed about for a long, long time.  Healing dummies.  And I’m not talking about those players you find in LFR.  I don’t care what anyone says, LFR is not good practice.  I’ll discuss that later.

But really, DPS have training dummies that they can smack around at their leisure.  They get to test talent builds, gems, enchants, rotations, everything.  But what about the healers?  We get to heal these ” ‘leets” in dungeons and raids.  That’s it, that’s our practice.

Now, admittedly, I like to think I’m a pretty good healer.  Naw, really, I have saved a raid or two…or three…or four…or-

A lot of that was luck, a perfect storm of damage, healers OOMing, a well-timed Tranq or Rebirth.  A lot it was the combined skill of two healers making calls in vent while the raid leaders and tank shut their traps for a moment and pray the healers can pull it off; we’ll worry about the broken bones later.  But where does this experience come from?  Dungeon runs, dungeon wipes, raids, and raid wipes.  Lots and lots of failed attempts go into the developing of “OH SHI-” buttons.   Did I Tranq too early when Wild Growth and several Rejuvinations could have done the job?

“Goose, healers learn to heal as they level.”

Yes, I DID level as a resto druid.  But guess what?  I have a guildy that leveled his Pally before trying to heal.  He healed dungeon heroics for a few days before healing DS10, in low-level gear….AND STRENGTH TRINKETS!  Ok, ok, it wasn’t his fault that trinkets wouldn’t dropped in his dungeons runs.  Also, our guild was so intrigued by his shift in perspective (he had never healed before….ever…since Vanilla) that the 10 man he was in place him between 2 very solid healers and let him have at it.  The result?  They downed Deathwing.  Not really unexpected at this point with the debuff values and such.

But not everyone gets that opportunity.  A lot of healers only get to run dungeons for practice; and let’s face it, dungeons aren’t hard at all if your tank is geared.  Dungeons aren’t hard if your group is decent.  Not much practice to be had.  And let’s say that you do find a group that doesn’t have the gear to carry your noob butt through the dungeon, what happens.  “Vote to kick.  Reason:  healz blowz”

“But they’ll eventually learn, no big deal.”

Nope, still problems.  I remember back to the release of 4.0, Cata pre-launch.  I was still trying to PUG into a group to down the King.  Now, I hadn’t paid attention to the Patch notes (learned my lesson) andwent into Blood Queen later that week, first time healing since the patch drop.  Result?  I was nearly kicked from the raid.  Why?  Let’s see…Lifebloom wouldn’t stay on my targets as I tried to blanket the raid, the bloom (when I guessed mid-fight that they weren’t going to stay on the target if I tried to put it on another target) wasn’t returning mana, rejuvinations were hella expensive to cast, and my Tree Form was now a CD.  WTF happened to my precious druid???

How Druids Could Save Your Raids

Many of us will remember back in Wrath when more than one Battle Rez was allowed in 10-man settings.  Many guilds ran straight druid raid teams strictly for this fact.  My old guild did not.  Just saying.

This was back in the days when I was part of Dragon Warriors, a guild on Cenarion Circle.  We never actually progressed past Festergut, but I won’t get into that.  We had the first set of bosses pretty much on farm and had enjoyable nights raiding.  My buddy Phoenix and I ran with the weekly raid, usually 2-healing the place (me druid, his priest as I recall).  He later brought his druid from Sen’jin and would raid with it from time to time.

There was another druid in the guild, Alik.  To this day she is on my RealID, though we don’t get much time to chat these days.  She was a Balanced druid.  Sylleye was another Restoration Druid that ran in the raids fairly regularly.  Most weeks we were not all in raid at the same time and rarely as all druids.

One magic evening, however, Sylleye and I were healing, Alik was rolling Balanced, and Phoenix as kitty.  We were tearing through the place and having a pretty good time.  We still had to be careful because even as accustomed to the fights as we were, a screw up would wipe you.  Well, a screw up occurred.

Now, I recall this particular event occurring on Sourfang, but Phoenix swears up and down it happened on Lootship.  I’m probably the one that’s wrong; usually on Sourfang I was too busy telling the other healer to keep on the tanks while I handled the raid and 4 of those Blood Curses or whatever that would tear up the DPS.  Oh, did I mention I was pretty kick-butt back in those days?  Still am, now that I think of it…

One final note:  this was back in the days when Innervate was crazy awesome and, when glyphed, druids could pass Innervates among themselves and be back up to full mana in no time.

Regardless of which fight it was, on of the non-druid DPS went down, Alik went down, Phoenix went down, and very shortly afterwards my co-healer for the night Sylleye went down.  I’ll do the math for you, 4 people down half-way through the fight.  The raid leader (Toonicky/Shaloon) came over vent and said:

“Alright, guys.  Let’s go ahead and wipe it up and-”

“Sylleye,” I cut in as I threw them a Brez, “get a Battle Rez on Alik!  Here’s an Innervate, give yours to Alik.”

2 seconds later and Alik was back on her feet.  “Alik, get Phoenix up.  Phoenix, you bring up (insert forgotten name).  Alik, give them your Innervate; Phoenix, give me yours.  Tranqing!”

Tranqing is a term I use to say I’m using Tranquility.  In short order the raid was back on its feet.  Toonicky came back over vent,

“Oh, hey, we’re back in this.”  We went on to down the boss.  Laughs were had, Druids were loved, I lost on the loot roll.  Go figure…

Pucker Moments: Gooooose!

As I continue to explore the topics that I want to discuss on this blog, my time spent in ICC with Big Bear Butt and friends has brought to mindone particular funny incident.  This incident will be the first in a series of posts that I will entitle “Pucker Moments.”

Now, I am sure that most of you will understand the term “Pucker Moment,” but for those who may not, let me explain…you’ll know one when it happens.  That said:

It was back in late Wrath, just prior to the release of Cataclysm.  That would have made it, what, August/September of ’10?  Anyway, I was trying to get my first King kill, my raiding guild was turning to shambles, and I had never been past Festergut.  I managed to PUG into another group’s run and had a successful run all the way through Sinestra.  The group called it a night and I was stuck with a lockout at the King.  Well, you can guess what this Druid did.

Extended lockouts were still relatively new, and I put them to good use.  I extended that lockout for weeks, PUGing 5 nights a week and trying to raid lead through a successful kill.  There was a steep learning curve involved, both the fight and how to lead a raid.  Thankfully I had a few patient players that helped me out tremendously.

All that above is setting the stage for the real point of this post.

One particular PUG I had was really only half PUGed.  Phoenix was with me as feral cat, an old friend Sadie was DK tanking, and I think there may have been one more friend involved.  We had another tank (can’t remember the class) who had a terrible time holding aggro, and multitarget aggro was beyond their comprehension.  While I really needed my good tank, Sadie, on the King, I had to move her to the adds to keep them from running amuch in the raid.  She wasn’t happy about it, even once I explained that it was because of what she was doing RIGHT that I had to move her.

So the tank on the King was bad.  How bad, you ask?  Let is suffice to say that I had to tell the raid that the only two people allowed to do anything for the first 15 seconds of the fight was the King tank and me (healing them).  15 seconds to build the aggro they would need to keep the King on them for the rest of the fight.  Even then some of the DPS had to throttle themselves.

Phoenix had a particularly rough time of it.  Something about the mixture of feral cat and the way he built his spec made him a aggro machine.  Mind you he was not necessarily the top of the DPS meter, either.  It was during this learning period that I discovered the true usefulness of Omen Threat Meter.

“12….13….14…ALRIGHT, GO!”

DPS unloaded and the fight was on.  Things were going fairly smoothly.  Infest was healed through, Plagues were being properly dropped.  Check the DPS meter, should have enough overall to do this.  Glance down at the threat meter while I have a second…

“Phoenix, watch your aggro, please.”

“I was only pulling 7.7-”

“Phonix, watch YOUR AGGRO!”

The King became annoyed with the little kitty tearing up his tail plating.  DING!

“GOOOOOOSE!”

Phoenixed Cowered with 1% health remaining and I went all out trying to get him back up.  A drop in output from Phoenix allowed his threat to reduce to normal levels and I have him the go ahead to unload again, warning him to watch his aggro.  Well…you guessed it.

“Phoenix, watch your aggro.”

“I was only-”

“Phoenix, WATCH YOUR AGGRO!”

DING!  You could almost hear the King say “And stay down!”  I laughed, Phoenix cried, we wiped soon after.  This story is one of the “legends” that he and I still bring up from time to time. 

For those curious, I did eventually down the King with a PUG about a week afterwards.  I say I because Phoenix transferred back to Sen’jin (We were on Cenarion Cirlce at the time, my home server).  I was pushing my raid to get the kill as we continued to wipe.  We were recovering from a particularly ugly wipe and were just about to make the pull when my Real ID lit up from Phoenix linking me his achievement and title.  A quick ugly word in return, pull, and 15 minutes later I linked him my own title.  He still gives me a hard time about getting the kill before me…

Tune in next time for the epic tales of Throne of Tides and “GET ‘EM OFFA ME!”

MoP Glyphs Part 1: Restoration

With the release of Mists looming on the horizon and the likelyhood that we could be seeing the prelaunch patch before much longer, I thought I’d go ahead and discuss glyphs for druids.  This is currently planned at a two part post with the second post being for Guardian Druids.  I currently do not have plans to discuss Feral and Balance as these are specs that I don’t play.  But, my offspec of Feral Bear (Guardian in MoP) may be changed depending on what my guild needs from me.

That said, a quick disclaimer or two.

While I do have a Beta key, I have only logged onto the Beta twice and ran a single dungeon healing at lvl 85.  Addons were not available when I ran, so I spent much of my time keeping the party up with very little time to analyze what was going on.  Perhaps once lvl 90 premades are made available I will log on and have a poke around.  Lvl 90s may already be available, I haven’t been keeping up.  And to answer your question, I have not desire to lvl a character on a Beta and then have to relevel once the expansion hits.  Remember before I mentioned I hate leveling?

Second, I have read a few blogs pertaining to Druid talents and Glyphs, including Retokin and WoW Insider (Shifting Perspectives).  Taking what I have learned reading these sites, I read through the MoP WoWhead and have developed what is listed below.

These are my thoughts and may not be best once the expansion hits.  We shall see.

And without further adue, here we go.  Let’s start off by listing the glyphs that pertain to Resto.

Glyph of Wild Growth:  Wild Growth can affect 1 additional target, but its cooldown is increased by 2 sec.

Glyph of Master Shapeshifter:  Reduces the mana cost of all shapeshifts by 90%.

Glyph of Blooming:  Increases the bloom heal of your Lifebloom when it expires by 50%, but its duration is reduced by 5 sec and your Healing Touch, Nourish, and Regrowth abilities no longer refresh the duration.

Glyph of Innervate:  When Innervate is cast on a friendly target other than the caster, the caster will gain 10% of maximum mana over 10 sec.

Glyph of Rebirth:  Players resurrected by Rebirth are returned to life with 100% health.

Glyph of Regrowth:  Increases the critical strike chance of your Regrowth by 40%, but removes the periodic component of the spell.

Glyph of Rejuvination:  When you have Rejuvenation active on three or more targets, the cast time of your Nourish spell is reduced by 30%.

Glyph of Lifeboom:  Casting Lifebloom on a new target grants that target as many applications as the old target had.  This effect will not occur while in Tree of Life Form, or when Lifebloom has less than 2 sec remaining.

Glyph of Healing Touch:  When you cast Healing Touch, the cooldown on your Swiftmend is reduced by 1 sec.

Wow, quite a few glyphs, eh?  Yeah, I know.  Despite Blizzard wanting to do away with cookie cutter builds, I truly believe that from the above glyphs, only 4 are really going to show any real use:  Glyph of Rebirth, Glyph of Regrowth, Glyph of Lifebloom, and Glyph of Rejuvination.  I will discuss these first before explaining why I doubt I’ll be using any of the others.

Glyph of Rebirth will be obvious to anyone who read my earlier rantings about this glyph.  To those who have not, there truly is nothing better than rezzing someone at 100% health vs. 20%.  ‘Nuff said.

Glyph of Lifebloom will be vital to any raiding Druid.  Even when we are assigned to raid healing (if your raids even do healing assignments anymore.  Oh, the simpler days) we must keep our Lifeblooms rolling for Clearcasting procs.  The best example I can bring up for this glyph is healing Ultraxion.  The tank switching gets me every time and it takes forever to stack those Lifeblooms.  A druid can spend the better part of half the fight just restacking those blooms.  Or, if you decide to just leave them on one tank regardless of who is tanking the boss for a short period, your healing is going to waste as the other tank get smacked around.  With this glyph we’ll be able to move all three stacks over with a single click.  I’ve been dreaming of this since 4.2 and almost cried when I saw that this would be in MoP.

Glyph of Rejuvination takes the place of 3 talent points from our current trees in 4.3.  I imagine the investment into these talents were made by about 50% of the Druid community, while the other half did not.  In the past it depended on your healing style.  What?  You didn’t know there were healing styles?  Of course you did.  Watch mah vids and dig mah swagger.

I listed Glyph of Regrowth Because I’m sure that some people will take it and Regrowths do crit nicely.  Wait….(does some quick research on the Regrowth spell)….Sweet mother….So how about Regrowth will automatically have a 60% increased chance to crit.  Stacking this glyph with it will remove the HoT component and garauntee that every Regrowth cast is a crit…this requires additional consideration.  For now I am not planning to use this glyph as Regrowth is entirely to expensive to be used on a regular basis, regardless of how much healing it does.  Oh, but consider how many times we have shifted to Tree form for the instant Regrowth spam on a single target, the HoT component being wasted as we spam trying to keep the tank alive.  I will have to report further on this in the future.

So yeah, those are my pics for Restoration glyphs.  To be fair and “transparent” (as transparency is becoming the new kick in the world), I will go through the other glyphs and explain why I do not intend to take them.  I would like to iterate that these conclusions are drawn strictly from a PvE perspective.  Yes, I have PvPed in the past and have healed a Warrior through some pretty intense 2’s.  More on some of those fights another time

Glyph of Wild Growth.  What can I say?  When it was first introduced as adding an additional target I was ecstatic.  Until I realized what the +2 second CD was doing to my healing.  I got used to the 6 second CD and would try to reapply WG as soon as it dropped off players.  Little did I realize at first I was missing entire sets of WG becuase they weren’t applying.  Later as I tried to compensate and track its CD, I found that my attention was split and I was waiting to cast spells in order to get Wild Growth out as soon as possible.  In the end I removed the glyph and decided I likely would never use it again.

Glyph of Blooming has its applications, but this is more of a PvP glyph in my book.  When I used to heal 2’s I had to redo my resto spec to take out the talents that refreshed LB.  It’s nice to time your LBs just right so that they expire while you are silenced/stunned.  However, from a PvE viewpoint, we rarely, if ever, want to LBs expiring.  While the 50% addition to bloom is nice, my blooms typically occur when I lose track of the LB on the tank, get out of range, or just let it bloom while I’m busy with somthing else and restack it later.  Taking this Glyph would take up a valuable slot and only give you situational usage.

Glyph of Innervate.  Ya know, I’m currently using this glyph in 4.3, but it rarely gives me any use.  Additionally, I haven’t really gone over my glyphs in months and am not overly concerned with being perfect at the moment.  I’m a competitive healer, but am geared enough at the moment that I rarely use Innvervate and will often give it to a caster DPS that I’ve had to Rebirth.  This glyph will be wasted in MoP because of the changes made to Innervate and its glyph during Cata.  I can tell you that during progression and fights when stuff starts going wrong, I rarely, repeat, rarely, give my Innervate out.  If a fight is so hardcore that Innervation is required, I can promise you that I’m more worried about my 20% mana as a healer than your 10% as a DPS (or other healer) and my 10% together.

Glyph of Healing Touch will require further inspection, but I do not forsee it being a useful glyph.  In a 15 second period, to cast a healing Touch will take 2 or more seconds, depending on your haste.  That’ll save you a second on CD, but I’m not going to be spamming Healing Touches on a regular basis.  Even if I needed to spam Healing Touch because of that much raid damage, I had better by in Tree Form getting my Tranquility dance on.  Remember your roots, fellow Druids.  HoTs, HoTs, and more HoTs.  Refresh LB on the tank.  With two other healers, chances are you’re going to be doing that with a Nourish and save some mana.  Throw out the WG now that it’s off CD, that’s a second gone.  Reapply a Rejuvination or two, 2 seconds gone.  Nourish a DPS or two, 2-4 seconds gone.  Go ahead and throw out that WG because it’s off CD.  Assuming you’ve used every GCD up to this point, you’re around 11 seconds.  If not, you’re up to 15 seconds and it’s time to pop that Swiftmend.  Look, I’m not a Healing Touch hater, I love the spell for its sheer power and healing throughput. I just won’t be using it enough to make much use of this glyph during Swiftmend’s 15 second CD.  Even if that 1 second would help you out, I’m of the opinion that if I really need 1 one second to save the raid, I’ve probably done something wrong that put me in that position.

 

Remember, I’m not telling you or anyone else how to play.  These glyphs laid out above are relevant to my playstyle.  I will impress upon you strongly how I think you SHOULD play, but you do what works for you.

That said, as always, drop your comments below.

Chat Time: Let’s Talk Battle Rezzes

Battle rez, B rez, Brez.  The sound of those words are just…ahh.  Nothing like it.  I love having a battle rez probably as much as I love being a druid.  Let’s set aside the fact that druids HAVE the battle rez and take that sentence for what it’s worth.

Glyph of Rebirth:  Players resurrected by Rebirth are returned to life with 100% health.

Now, I’m not one to force talents and stuff on other people.  I will give advice, STRONG advice, but everyone has to play their own way.  That said, I really see no reason why any specced druid would not have this glyph.

I understand that glyphs help us do more damage, or in my case helps to increase healing throughput.  Usually there are two good glyphs for your spec and then a spare glyph for playing around with.  Yes, I know that you can fill up all three slots with glyphs that will have constant benefit.

However, I want you to remember that, regardless of your spec, you are a druid.  Well, gee wiz, Goose, that was obvious.  Yes, but one of the major bonuses of being a druid is the ability to Battle Rez.  “But, Goose, DKs and Warlocks can rez in combat too!”  Yes, but have you already forgotten the beginning of this post?  We get a Glyph that lets us rez someone and give them 100% health.

Now, from a Resto druid’s point of view, the advantage of this is plain as day.  Even as DPS and Tank specs we can understand the importance of brining someone back with 100% health instead of 20%.  Bringing someone up at only partial health is a strain on the healers. 

Just the other night I was in Firelands raiding with my guild and one of the DPS went down.  The Raid Leader called out for one of the DPS to bring him back up.  Before I could get in range and bring the guy up myself (I was healing), a soulstone was popped and the boss immediately did an AoE slam ability that 1-shotted the just-rezzed DPS.  We wiped, and probably would have wiped even if I had brought him back with 100% health.  However, the rez was wasted because the DPS was immediately killed.

Let’s look at this from another angle.  Let’s say that you have a few seconds before the next big AoE and you bring a DPS up with 20% health.  The healers are now struggling trying to heal this guy, diverting attention from tanks and other DPS to focus on this one guy.

Alright, enough lecturing on that; I’m beating the dead horse.  Just know that that in some cases it’s a life-saver, and other times it’s a quality of life thing.  If you are not Resto specced, your healers will love you for being considerate.

Now, RAID LEADERS.  Yes, I’m talking to you.  If you have a druid in your raid along with a DK and/or Warlock, you need to inspect that druid to see if they are glyphed for Rebirth.  If they are, use them over the other rezzes when heavy raid damage is coming/about to come.  During those low damage burn phases feel free to use one of the other rezzes.

I have heard Raid Leaders tell me that they don’t want to call on me (as a healer) to Rez someone because they don’t want to pull my attention away from healing others.  My response:  you’re joking, right?

If so much damage is going out that you don’t think the druid has time to cast that rez, I can just about promise you that the person rezzed will be dead in short order; you’re just adding another low-health person to the list of concerns for the healers.  Aside from that, I can’t say that I have ever been in a situation where somewhere within a 20 second period I could not spare the 2 seconds needed to cast the rez.  Even early expansion periods have periods, even in the high damage phases, where time can be taken to cast the rez.  And if it’s really so bad that you don’t want to waste GCD, a druid can macro his Nature’s Swiftness into his Rebirth and you do away with the cast time.  You’ve invested 1 GCD to bring a DPS up to 100% health, and the healers don’t have to activate the Kai-O-Ken technique to get them up in short order.

Final thought:  I also have Glyph of Rebirth active in my Feral tank spec.  Nothing like being the offtank and brining a healer back up.

As always, leave your thoughts below.

ICC Cross Realm Remix

Alright, I’d like to thank everyone for their patience.  Believe me, yours made up for my lack thereof.

A little information on this one:  was really only planning on this being a template for a future rendition, but after 10 hours editing and hearing one of my favorite songs for the entirety of it, I think I’ll just let this one stand.  Some of you will recognize the ending footage as our King kill 2 weeks ago.  I didn’t have anything more recent and that footage was good anyway.

That said, please enjoy.  I highly recommend cranking up the volume, but don’t get in trouble over it.  Leave me your thoughts.

PS:  If you think the video overlays at the end were a bit too much activity, it’s easy enough to edit them out.