Epic Quests

Even though it melted my brain for nearly 4 hours, I really love the Quel-Delar questline. I think it deserved its own movie, though.

Turning in Quel'Delar to the Justicar

Go me!

Filed under: achievement, druid, pretty

Goals: Rep grind!

Reputation is a joke on my alts, but on my oldest toon, my main, my lovely druid, I really want to get her rep up. I freaking crave the Guardian of Cenarius title. But…. sadly I’m lazy. Too lazy with too many 80s to do randoms on to sit and grind annoying rep.

So what are my rep goals with her?

Argent Dawn to exalted. No I will not get the other Argent rep. I’ve done like 3 dailies at the Tournament. Seriously.

Sporeggar to exalted. I’m almost there and getting sanguine hibiscus should be simple with my tank spec.

Scale of the Sands? She’s revered now, but in the bottom half, so… Not sure how possible this will be.

The Kalu’ak to exalted. Silly and easy dailies. I really just wish Dalaran didn’t lag me out so badly.

The Ashen Verdict, Silver Covenant, Explorer’s League and Frostborn will come naturally it seems just from heroics with no tabard on. I dig it.

If I count right I’m at 23 exalted reps right now. 4 more with these goals, and 4 more to come just from my daily activities. 30 exalted reps will be sweet as hell! Maybe I could even do the Netherwing stuff!

Filed under: druid, grinding, reputation

Healing ICC thoughts

I’ve managed to heal through ten man ICC up through Saurfang on my discipline priest, my resto druid and my resto shaman. I also heal 25 man ICC on the druid. It’s been… interesting. And a school of hard knocks. Here’s what has been going through my mind when facing this huge payload of damage I have to help heal.

My main is the druid, and I’ve done far more 25s with her than 10s, I’ve also simply been in there more with her. I have affiliations with other guilds on the server and have pugged the priest and shaman into their tens when they were short healers or doing alt runs. But the most pain has been felt on my druid.

Why?

Because with a good raid, the trash is EASY sauce heal-wise. At least with my co-healers. Most nights we run 2 holy palys, 1 disc priest, 1 or 2 resto shamans, and me. Yeah that’s a lot of friggin heals. And they’re all awesome at their job. So me and my measly little hots are brushed aside pretty easily. And, I try to hurricane or Faerie Fire or roots but with heavy melee and aoe damage, basically I stand there and look pretty. (Good thing my druid is damn fine!)

Last night I was talking in our guild healing chat channel. And I said “honestly, at this point, I pretty much view my job as putting up healing buffers to keep people alive until the palys or the shamans or even the priest let loose a heal bomb. I know the heal bombs are there and I know it’s going to come. I just gotta keep people alive til then.” A very forgettable job. My heal numbers look like crap. My overheal is insane. The numbers don’t bother me since I know and accept my role. But I know my RaidLeaders don’t really get it. How’d I go from uber heals in TOC to nada in ICC? Well we went from 5 to 7 healers. And 1 shaman to 2 most nights. My hots are overwritten so fast, it’s only on fights that are freaking crazy to heal (Marrowgar and Deathwhisper) that I might actually put up a good show numbers wise. I mean, I’m still doing my job. I’m healing to my best. But it’s hard to show that until everyone in the raid is nearly dead and my hots helped keep them alive. Luckily, one of the uber paladins that heals our raids saw my chatting and loosely agreed with me, then later on in our 2healed 10 man he complimented me because we healed that to death and rocked it. The best compliment is when he says “I like not having to stress about the healing situation.” Yay?!

In TOC I loved my crit, even at a lowly 22%. I didn’t even have the (4) T9 that let Rejuv crit, but in TOC it was WG that went a little crazy. My healing strategy was Rejuv and Nourish heavy with WG every time it was on cooldown. But now that I’m in ICC with more healers that heal like mack trucks, I’ve switched to Rejuv and Regrowth, and pulled Swiftmend out of the cobwebs. I mean, it was on my bar, but I barely had to use it. In ICC despite the Chill of the Throne damage is intense and fast heals are king, I think. Well fast heals and bubbles! And my heals… are not fast, unless I nourish spam, which makes me just another healer like the rest in my healing crew. I want to heal my best, but I want to really bring something useful to the raid, and I think my methodology now is good, given the other awesome healers I raid with.

Marrowgar and Deathwhisper are where I really love my glyph of Rejuvenation. Whatever it’s proper name, it boosts heals when targets are below 50%. That thing has saved lives on Marrowgar, I know it. GCD annoys the piss out of me in ICC. Did I mention I’m not haste capped yet? Not by a long shot. And the one upgrade I’ve gotten to drop in ICC10 (last night) has crit on it. #%!@! I actually traded out equal ilevel bracers from TOC and lost 2 sockets just for some haste. This is making me sad. But I refuse to gem purely for haste and I love my socket bonuses. So I’m up a creek without a paddle, basically, until I can get more upgrades.

I learned on Deathwhisper that I simply HAD to change my hot keys for ICC. Which is tough as I try to make my cleanses across all my toons on the same hotkey. My aoe heals on the same hotkey. My bigger heals on the same hotkey. Because of this hot mentality I’m focusing on with the druid, I really had to shift away from that. And I have to bring in my decurse for this Witch. It’s aggravating and pushing me to set up clique and get it working. And it was Marrowgar that made me reconfig my Disc Priest’s buttons.

On my druid, this is where I’m at with my hot buttons.

I really feel I should probably switch Nourish and Swiftmend, but then I use Swiftmend when I intended to nourish and I get confused, mostly because of my keybind setup across all 4 of my healers. I may have to macro Swiftmend to my Rejuv or Regrowth buttons with a modifier. I don’t use many macros at all so this is a big undertaking for me. But like I said, ICC is pushing me to become a better healer. Clique may be needed to transform my cleansing life on all my toons.

As for my Discipline Priest had her share of keybind shakeups to get through ICC. I’ve only been in ten man a few times with her, but the first was extremely rough for a number of reasons and really bushed me to get the most out of my healing there. I learned from that escapade and next time in made some changes.

After the experience in ICC, and leading to a successful 2 heal 10man clear through Saurfang with my resto tree buddy (@xparanormalityx) I used this setup instead.

I have to say, healing ICC with the priest was HELLA FUN. On my druid I feel weak and too slow, and shaman is.. awesome in an epeen sorta way. But I felt my most versatile and best on the priest. Even as a tank healer, two healing it with my druid buddy made me intensely happy to heal again. Maybe it was just that that ten man had a certain ambiance that made everything fun and good. Not sure, but it was great.

The shaman? She’s OP. Walked into a 25man ICC pug and chain heal stomped holy priests that overgeared her, though I was fighting with a druid for pure numbers. The drops that druid got made me cry inside for my main, but the shaman got a suuuuuper shield so I was happy. She’s not the first to get tier 10, as the druid got her gloves for some sexy haste, but she’s undoubtedly the sexiest of my toons, even if the most underplayed. Life in my bank guild is quiet.

Filed under: druid, healing, icecrown, priest, raiding, shaman

More reason not to tank

Let’s set the scene.

This week I was handed a very forceful, er, painful reminder of why I stopped tanking and that aside from heroics I should probably continue to avoid it. I tried to jump into a 25m pug for ToC that sort of fell apart and turned into two 10mans. They needed a tank. So instead of trying to get gear on my priest, I ended up bear tanking. Painful lessons, I tell you!

Aside from people not knowing fights and the problems that ensue from that, I realized that green goo is damn freaking hard to see when one is tanking Dreadmaw. Ugh! Needless to say, I had superb threat control, but went splat (sometimes before everyone else, sometimes not). Luckily I dodged getting saved, as I think my guild wants to do something different tonight with guild ten mans, a new development!

So, after that disaster I spent most of the week agonizing over bear upgrades which are few and far between. I hate fucking armor penetration. I don’t want to play cat. I want to be a bear tank. I would give all the gold on my level 35alt (heh) for gdamn freaking TANK GEAR. In fact, the tier pieces piss me the fuck off with their green stats, while I stare longingly at the (2) and (4) bonuses. I ended up keeping my godforsaken trollwoven shoulders, with mental notes to upgrade belt for sure with crafted gear. Some day. When I’m rolling in crusader orbs and my main raiding gear has already been upgraded.

But, all this was really just lead in. Kalon has been my go-to druid-tank blogger since I stumbled across his blog. I throw his addy at would-be bears in every guild I’ve been in. It’s good stuff.

Right now he’s working on a series of posts to contradict, calm, or explain in depth some of the theory, worry, fear, and possibilities for bears in Icecrown.

Me, I’m a big yellow belly bear. I hate change. I grew roots and brownish leaves and went tree when I spent my entire TBC career swearing I’d never every NO NEVER heal because of the armor/stamina changes that happened when Wrath came out. Threw in the towel on tanking. Eventually I remembered how useful it is to have an offspec when the server seemed to suddenly swim in healers (not all good). Plus, it helps me and @xparanormalityx run the daily heroic on all our toons when we can heal/tank 2 of them together.

Why do these changes from “Chill of the Throne” terrify me? Let me tell you. I’m a versatile druid. I had the most fun in TBC in Zul Aman because I was required to use every single trick in my bag, constantly, on almost every boss fight. From battle rezes to innervates to add tanking to dpsing when the other tank had the boss. It was superb fun. But now there’s this debuff.

For Icecrown Citadel, we are implementing a spell that will affect every enemy creature in the raid. The spell, called Chill of the Throne, will allow creatures to ignore 20% of the dodge chance of their melee targets. So if a raid’s main tank had 30% dodge normally, in Icecrown Citadel they will effectively have 10%.

That blows. I started this by saying that I’m not a theorycrafter and I’m not a main-tank in a raiding guild. I tank heroics. So take all my thoughts with my limitations in mind, please.

I understand druids could tank naked. We don’t need defense. Our only mitigation is dodge. Dodge and the silly crit bubbles we have now. Both of which hinge on agility. So, when it comes to bear tanking, primary stats are STAMINA, AGILITY, and then the green bonuses of MORE DODGE, EXPERTISE, HIT, ATTACK POWER, CRIT. That’s how I would rank the green stats. Pretty simple compared to warrior tanks, pally tanks, deathknugget tanks. They get crap like Defense that actually does something, parry, block if you’re not a DK, these other mitigation forces.

I see it like this. Druids need a lot of dodge because it’s really our only mitigation. Stacking stamina is not mitigation, btw. Other tanks get the dodge inherent on their gear, but they also get those other mitigation stats.

Let’s compare @xparanormalityx‘s prot paladin and my bear druid, shall we?

Armor:	24189 (61.36%)	Resilience:	0.00
Defense:	540 (-+5.60%)	Def Rating:	690 (+140)
Dodge %:	25.89	Dodge Rating:	561 (+12.40%)
Parry %:	18.38	Parry Rating:	188 (+4.15%)
Block %:	16.88	Block Rating:	103 (+6.28%)

Armor:	7324 (32.47%) 28127(64.87%)	Resilience:	0.00
Defense:	417 (-+0.68%)	Def Rating:	86 (+17)
Dodge %:	29.86 / 38.86	Dodge Rating:	285 (+6.30%)
Parry %:	0.00	Parry Rating:	0 (+0.00%)
Block %:	0.00	Block Rating:	0 (+0.00%)

(I had to edit this because the in game bear numbers were different)

prot pally stats vs. my druid’s 40% dodge in bear form.

So, with “Chill of the Throne” my bear will drop to 20% dodge. Pyh’s dodge will drop to 5% but he’ll still have those other mitigation factors.

Armorylite is being a pain and not catching my druid’s tank gear, so I’ll update this soon once the changes happen.

Needless to say, I don’t like having zero options to be a decent tank unless I do nothing but stack stamina. And this change will force druids to do that yet again, while as we geared up we were able to play with expertise, hit and arpen for threat generation.

I did say I was resistant to change, right? I like what Jacemora said.

All I know is I am glad I am not tanking anymore and I don’t have to worry about it

Filed under: bears, druid, tank, tanking

A new plan

I finally took the plunge and put my druid into a progression based raiding guild. I feel guilty on multiple levels. I was first asked to tank with my druid for these guys almost six months ago, during a rough time with her first guild, the one she raided with in TBC, and I was working on my shaman and had almost totally given up on doing anything with the druid. I should have joined them then. But, I didn’t. So we move on.

I’m healing with the druid, and I had what I thought was the best assignment for my first night raiding with them. Simple raid heals. It was great. But their raids are full of 2 disc priests, a holy priest, and some holy shamans. Needless to say my hots are too slow to tick! So I showed myself pretty shabby on the numbers when I wasn’t dying due to unfamiliarity with the fights.

Vezax wasn’t that surprising. I had done my homework. But everything I heard/read was that 3 stacks was pretty decent to have the green goo, get some mana back, etc. But nothing was happening. Then when I hit 5 stacks I hit a lag spike for some unknown reason and my jump out of the goo was slow and next thing I know I’m dead. Soooo frustrating. I’m not the type that’s gonna jump in right away with my excuses. Lag spikes are random and I’m not sure what caused the problem there. It pisses me off as much as it makes me feel guilty for failing my job to stay alive. So, I feel like slime.

I think I’m really an anticipatory healer. I like to know the kind of damage that should be coming in because I’m really good at meeting those needs. But sudden spikes of unexpected damage tend to show me at a disadvantage. So with a new guild I’m struggling to learn how these tanks take damage. And their strategies are a bit different from the other guilds I’ve managed to run this content with on my other toons.

So, just, ugh. I need to learn more on how to maximize druid raid heals. And I really need that idol. As much as I love getting mana back from Lifebloom the GCD vs the healing it spits out seems not a good balance, and I much prefer Rejuvenation. /headdesk

Filed under: druid, healing, raiding

The NEW UI

I finally got my act together, and stumbled upon a great UI in the comments of Big Bear Butt’s latest post about a screwy addon happenstance. It is Blacksen’s UI, and while sure I pillaged it and tossed out a lot of the heavy memory hogs, I loved the basic pitbull setup and the general look of it.

So, here we have it. This is from our guild meeting. Notice the raid down the left? My tip tac addon in the bottom left above the chat frame is aggravating me. The druid target is a balance, but I am tree spec in this shot. Get the talents right! On the bottom right is my cellular tabs window for whispers. I can minimize it and that’s also where Omen threat meter and Recount are, during real raids, when I want the info. (When I’m healing I usually don’t have omen up, and I almost always open recount after a fight, rather than stare during).

Filed under: addons, druid, raid, UI, warcraft

The NEW UI

I finally got my act together, and stumbled upon a great UI in the comments of Big Bear Butt’s latest post about a screwy addon happenstance. It is Blacksen’s UI, and while sure I pillaged it and tossed out a lot of the heavy memory hogs, I loved the basic pitbull setup and the general look of it.

So, here we have it. This is from our guild meeting. Notice the raid down the left? My tip tac addon in the bottom left above the chat frame is aggravating me. The druid target is a balance, but I am tree spec in this shot. Get the talents right! On the bottom right is my cellular tabs window for whispers. I can minimize it and that’s also where Omen threat meter and Recount are, during real raids, when I want the info. (When I’m healing I usually don’t have omen up, and I almost always open recount after a fight, rather than stare during).

Filed under: addons, druid, raid, UI, warcraft

Wow-armory fail!

So I log into the game to switch my druid’s gear and spec back to tanking so I can get some constructive criticism (maybe I’m gearing wrong? Enchanting? Gemming?) and it appears that even tho the main page says Resto, the talents page says Feral Tank.  And the gear says resto even tho as I logged in I see my tank gear.

W. T. F. 

I’m saying that a lot lately.  Don’t ask about my road rage issues…

The Big Bear Butt Blogger wrote a simply fabulouso post today about druid tanking and threat (a continuation of his WoWInsider stuff?) in general.  I am reassured that I am doing everything I can (FF, fcharge, mangle/maul combos) but the trigger happy ranged dps that don’t maintain anywhere near half their max range are the problems.  

I still hear “Guys let her get aggro/threat” in my head at times when NPR or music isn’t on, and it still makes me twitch (“wtf do you want me to do?! I’m using every global cooldown I can on everything I’ve got!” /suppressed vent speak) but I know it’s not really my problem in the threat department.  It doesn’t help that they outgear me (Malkazar, Siku, Klanfear/druid,mage,shaman) in many ways.  I don’t roll on 7.5 gear on the few raids I run with the guild because I simply don’t raid as often as the others, and thus they need it more than me.

I think it’s just worse because I don’t raid the druid very often, so my confidence with her tanking, especially main tanking, is shot.  And having a healer as my main, I feel both the fail-tank guilt and the “shit those healers feel like crap now” guilt.

Filed under: druid, tank

Druid fail-tanking

Noth25, Oh I hate him.  And that was after Military Thaddius25 mini-bosses, where a mage got tossed instead of me, leading to a wipe.  On Noth, it was literally impossible to hold Noth off of the three 3 enhancement shamans, the boomkin, and the mages.  W.T.F.  Am I that bad?  From what I read I didn’t think bear threat mechanics were that sucky.  But I woulda given an organ if I could get the Warrior Vigilance talent, for real.  Something, anything, to boost my threat.  So maybe in my head I expect bear tanks should be as high insta threat as paladin tanks, as warrior tanks, and maybe that’s just wrong, and I need to “educate” the dps (who don’t often run with druid tanks) on that fact.

I love to tank.  I’m just very persnickety about it.  Trigger happy psycho-dps that ignore threat meters piss me the fuck off, and if Im’ raid leading they’d be better to NOT raid with me.  That said, I am such a fail tank in Wrath.  It bugs me.  

I tanked in TBC pretty much constantly.  I was a raiding and heroic machine, and Lheaf’s reputations and her collection of T3 (which took forever to get the helm) speaks for itself.  I loved it.  I’d like to say I was damn good.  Grinding raids and heroics is about knowing the encounters and knowing the raiders/group members you’re with, and anticipating how the 2 will meet.  I can handle that.

Maybe I just need to pop berserk at the begining of those fights and hope it holds, and get back into the habit of yelling at stupid dps on vent.  I can do that.  It does NOT make me happy to have the warrior-that-usually-tanks saying on vent repeatedly “guys let her get aggro/threat” and having the smart dps say it too.  I still feel like a failure.  

But hey last night I got the rest of my NAXX25 clear achievements so I never have to do it again…

Note: I would totally link Lheaf’s armory (really you could find her, there’s only 4 and she’s the only 80) but she’s wearing resto gear and I’m embarassed because now I can’t change it due to maintenance, and I was playing with this post in my head since Sunday so I really shoulda known better.

Filed under: druid, tank

Druid fail-tanking

Noth25, Oh I hate him.  And that was after Military Thaddius25 mini-bosses, where a mage got tossed instead of me, leading to a wipe.  On Noth, it was literally impossible to hold Noth off of the three 3 enhancement shamans, the boomkin, and the mages.  W.T.F.  Am I that bad?  From what I read I didn’t think bear threat mechanics were that sucky.  But I woulda given an organ if I could get the Warrior Vigilance talent, for real.  Something, anything, to boost my threat.  So maybe in my head I expect bear tanks should be as high insta threat as paladin tanks, as warrior tanks, and maybe that’s just wrong, and I need to “educate” the dps (who don’t often run with druid tanks) on that fact.

I love to tank.  I’m just very persnickety about it.  Trigger happy psycho-dps that ignore threat meters piss me the fuck off, and if Im’ raid leading they’d be better to NOT raid with me.  That said, I am such a fail tank in Wrath.  It bugs me.  

I tanked in TBC pretty much constantly.  I was a raiding and heroic machine, and Lheaf’s reputations and her collection of T3 (which took forever to get the helm) speaks for itself.  I loved it.  I’d like to say I was damn good.  Grinding raids and heroics is about knowing the encounters and knowing the raiders/group members you’re with, and anticipating how the 2 will meet.  I can handle that.

Maybe I just need to pop berserk at the begining of those fights and hope it holds, and get back into the habit of yelling at stupid dps on vent.  I can do that.  It does NOT make me happy to have the warrior-that-usually-tanks saying on vent repeatedly “guys let her get aggro/threat” and having the smart dps say it too.  I still feel like a failure.  

But hey last night I got the rest of my NAXX25 clear achievements so I never have to do it again…

Note: I would totally link Lheaf’s armory (really you could find her, there’s only 4 and she’s the only 80) but she’s wearing resto gear and I’m embarassed because now I can’t change it due to maintenance, and I was playing with this post in my head since Sunday so I really shoulda known better.

Filed under: druid, tank