Karazhan Healing Cheat-Sheet

I realize now that I have not talked very much about Karazhan, which is quite surprising. Prior to my inception to Sunder, I had spent many, many months farming Kara over and over, almost exclusively. In doing so, I learned quite a lot about the different bosses and how to navigate them on a Restoration spec’d druid. This was requested by Kakalaki.

Attumen the Huntsman
Attumen is a very straightforward fight. A well-geared Restoration druid (or any healer, really) can solo heal him, but it’s not recommended if you’re uncomfortable with the fight. The basic idea is to keep HoTs ticking on the tank(s) (depending on your guild’s strategy). As soon as Attumen and Midnight combine, hug the horse’s butt. If you are too removed from Attumen, he will charge you, and sometimes one-shot you. To make things easier, it’s recommended to mark someone with a raid symbol and require everyone to stand on them.

Moroes
As a Restoration druid, this fight for you is very, very straightforward. Keep HoTs on the tanks, throw some heals on anyone else who needs it. If your group runs out of ways to eliminate the garrote, stack Lifeblooms on those affected. You don’t have to watch them too carefully; usually one Lifebloom is fine, and you can even let it bloom. It’s more important to keep your tanks up and those in charge of CCing the adds. Abolish Blinds when they come up (a mod like Decursive makes it very easy to see when this happens).

Maiden
Maiden is also very straightforward. You cannot dispel the Holy Fires, so you are purely healing. Watch your melee and keep them alive through the consecration, but more importantly keep your tank up. Watch for the Repentance and make sure your HoTs are fresh before it goes off. Staying in the consecrate will give you a silence debuff; however, if you can time it well, it’s helpful to jump into it right before a Repentance so the consecrate ticks knock you out of a stun. Be careful of doing it too early, or an ill-timed Holy Fire can kill you. Another option is having your tank aware of where you are standing and having him draw Maiden over to you for a consecrate tick.

Opera
Romulo and Julianne
This fight can be summed up simply as: heal the tanks. Throw a HoT on those hit by Julianne. Keep Abolish up on the Romulo tank.

Big Bad Wolf
Make sure you are prepared to Swiftmend or NS+HT the little Red Riding Hood. If you become Little Red Riding Hood, be aware of your surroundings and where to run. Pop Barkskin and pray for healing or a BoP. Otherwise, heal the tank.

Wizard of Oz
Like the Moroes fight, you cannot do much but heal and stay out of the way. If you have a Paladin, have him Judge Wisdom on the tin man once all the others are dead, and chase after him, giving him a little whack with your tree fists. Avoid the cyclones with the crone, and you’re home free.

Curator
Heal the tank on Curator, and throw some HoTs on the dps snagging the flares. Keep an eye out for who takes hurtfuls, and give them some Resto love. At 20% he will Enrage; watch his health and prepare to put all your HoTs on the main tank. During his Evocations, no one should be taking damage. If no one is in desperate need of healing, take advantage of a Dreamless Sleep Potion or simply your 5SR to regen some mana.

Illhoof
Your guild should give out raiding assignments. If you have three healers, the assignments generally go Tank, Raid or Warlock. Keep your assignment up with as many different HoTs as you need. If you can spare it, throw some HoTs up on those not your assignment, as they are always a help. Heal the person in Demon Chains, and if you start to be sacrificed, pop your Barkskin and pray your DPS is on the ball.

Shade of Aran
Resto Druids are very, very sneaky for this boss fight. Every other healer cannot stand close to Shade because of his counterspell ability he likes to spam. However, due to the instant-cast nature of Druid healing, you can stand basically on top of him, spam heals and never worry a bit about Blizzard. If you need to do anything with a cast time, simply back up, get it off, and go back in. When he pulls everyone to the middle, shifting forms will dispel the debuff. If you have the mana for it, while you’re at the wall, throw a Moonfire onto him.

Netherspite
Netherspite and I have a love-hate relationship. The Green Beam is excellent for healers, as it increases your healing output by a very large amount. However, as time goes by, it reduces your mana pool and, if your pool reaches zero, the beam continues to heal Netherspite. Most guilds assign a non-mana using dps for the Green Beam. If you have a Beam assignment, watch for the black circles opening up beneath you. Only move forward or backward. If you do not have a beam, still stick close to Netherspite, and remind your whole guild to do so as well. Everyone takes AoE damage, and if they are out of range of their healers, they die. When you run to the wall as Netherspite banishes, encourage everyone to bandage so you can conserve your mana.

Chess
Pick a piece. Use its abilities. Kill the enemy’s King. Win! (Our Chargers seem to always be the pieces which kill the King, go figure.)

Nightbane
Keep yourself at max range from the tank; this will help you avoid any and all AoE fears. Barkskin during rain of bones and try to keep HoTs ticking on as many people as you can. Move out of the Scorched Earth, and keep on your toes. Nightbane loves to decimate unwitting raids.

Prince
Prince can be a jerk in more ways than one. To eliminate most of your infernal problems, keep most of your ranged at the doorway and put the tank at max distance along the left wall. During Phase 1, feel free to throw HoTs on the melee and anyone else taking damage. Watch for Phase 2 at 60% and get every HoT on the main tank. Tell your melee to bandage if necessary, but your tank must be fully HoTted at all times. When Phase 3 arrives, you can relax a bit on your main tank. Barkskin when axes come for you, and make sure everyone who takes damage from them calls it out so you can throw them a heal or two.

Well, there you have it! A quick overview of all the bosses in Karazhan, except the animal bosses. But, ah, not many people do those, and I personally never have.

Good luck, and happy raiding!

Reliquary Down!

Reliquary of the Lost was downed by Sunder on Sunday night, and I was there for it. My first guild first in my new guild! Huzzah!

Loot:
[Grips of Damnation] (Hunter), [Naturewarden's Treads] (Elemental Shaman)

Here's a quick overview of the fight:

RoS is a very interesting fight. First phase is intense, since no one can heal. Druids can't dispell the soul drain, so if you can do it, put up Insect Swarm on the boss to help it miss people. Pop Barkskin when you're fixated, and only take a Fixate once unless you're a feral druid with enough HP to take it twice. All you can do is DPS, so keep it up until Desire.

When Desire is out, keep an eye on the dps. Be aware of who has high burst damage and get HoTs up on them before Deaden is active so they have a little leeway. Don't bother minding your mana, as it's constantly being decreased and the ghosts will fill it back up at the end anyway.

Anger has to be burned and fast. You will start taking too much damage too quickly the longer he is alive. On the flip side, your tanks will have to burn through their rage/mana to keep it from burning them, so your dps will be riding your tank's tail for the whole fight. I'd advise you to save your Nature Protection Potion for when Spite falls on you instead of popping it in the beginning; if you don't get Spite you'll want your Health Potion ready to go. Pop Barkskin when you think you need it, and Tranquility is one of the most amazing group heals for this boss. Make sure you use it, especially if you're in the main tank group. Your guild should have CoH priests and resto shamans assigned to the raid for this; your HoTs cannot keep up and cannot stack fast enough. Instead, make sure all your HoTs, and I mean all of them, are on the main tank. Throw a few on yourself and others, but keep HoTs ticking.

When we downed RoS, six people remained alive (and luckily two of them were paladins), including myself. The main tank died at roughly 3% of the boss; we burned them down. The holy paladin Sharlet got the killing blow on RoS.

This is a fun, fast-paced, technical fight.

Don't kick the Deadens, rogues.

Lamaa, and a Reality Check

Blizzard has enacted its mass ban, and the blogosphere is all abuzz with the news. What news, specifically? Lamaa has been banned, an upstanding member of AC, with no botting practices to his name. For the full story, please go to TJ's blog or follow the link here.

I am not against the mass-bans. And I understand there is almost unavoidable collateral damage, but that doesn't mean I can't be supportive of how much it positively sucks. I do not know Lamaa personally, but he's the friend of a friend, of many friends. I have read some things by him on TJ's blog, just little things, but they were funny and I enjoyed them. That this has happened is shameful. And Blizz's customer service track record ain't that good.

What I don't get, and what seems to be a popular trend as the blogosphere grows and encompasses more people and more of the WoW community, is people trying to tell writers what they can and cannot do on their own personal blogs.

No one is forcing you to read this. No one is forcing you to "waste" your time on it. No one is forcing you to write comments, especially unhelpful and completely unconstructive or even accusatory comments on those blog posts you find offensive. Now, I'm not talking about people who disagree with posts. Oh, heck no, I love these people. You have no idea how much I enjoy an intelligent discussion with people who disagree with me. No insults, just a presentation of different sides of the argument. It's wonderful. As much as "hey, great post!" comments make me feel all warm inside, they're harder to respond to with anything other than a "thanks, and thanks for stopping by!" So, really, disagree with me all you want.

Understand what a blog is. It is a personal public journal. What people choose to do with their blog is their business. And yes, they put it on a public forum with public access and allow you to place your comments on it. But being a presumptuous asshole and telling a blogger what they are and are not allowed to do on their blog is like walking into someone's house and telling them how to decorate it. Unless they paid for your advice, all you are is a jerk, just like, unless you paid for an interior decorator or solicited an opinion, the person telling you how to set up your house is plain rude.

Let's get something straight really quick: we are not writing for you. We may be on a level writing for the collective you, but losing one reader because they got all huffy about something is just losing a bit of skin. Maybe it stings a bit, maybe it doesn't. But we slap a band-aid on it and we get back on the bike, and either we get a cool scar to tell a story about or it disappears forever into the back of our minds and we decide we don't care.

Oh, and if you have to do it anonymously, you're also spineless. I at least have a modicum of respect for someone who is willing to claim their shit and not hide on the internet, of all places. If you're too scared to use even a 'net handle, I can't believe you even have the nerve to think some of this stuff in public in case a telepath catches you.

Perhaps it's too much to hope this kind of thing will get through to people, because the people who this is directed at the most are rather presumptuous, AKA so full of themselves they can probably taste their lower intestine.

EDIT: I do want everyone to know this is not directed at one or even a few people in particular. It's a culmination of bad days, WoW forums, and rude people. This is directed at the troll community as a whole.

The Impossible is Possible! Random Updates

People are always very worried about Bear Form's constant mouth open problem. Well, worry no more, and rest assured in the fact that it is possible for it to be closed. No kidding. Seriously. See the above screenshot.

Unfortunately, this seems to be only true when you are swimming as a bear. Go figure, you don't want to swallow the entire ocean.

Also, my latency continues to be evil. No lie. Check it out!



But! I just downloaded PerformanceFu, so hopefully my issues will be alleviated a bit.

I have recently also got an influx of fun mail in my mailbox. I've received thank yous from people, interesting offers from Ratshag (he doesn't like begging, but apparantly his tentacle-faced self needs to be pimped), and also a gray pick-axe with a note saying "for my nose." My friends are weird.

I finally got to see Archimonde go down. So awesome, that last ten percent where you're immune to everything, and you can just dps the heck out of him. Also, jokes about Finger of Death, and "being Fingered for over 100k damage" will never, ever get old. Ever.

♥ to you all, I'll have something more substantial up for you a bit later!

I am NOT a Potted Plant

I’m calling shenanigans. Tree Form has to be a colossal joke upon the entire druid class. I’m not kidding.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Tree of Life Form. It’s spectacular with its aura and the reduction in mana-cost to healing. The tree dance is great (let’s do the twist, kids), and the animations we have are hilarious. I love to “sleep” by sticking my little root feets into the ground and hang my head.

But the fun stops there. And, oddly enough, it is stopped by what is perhaps the weirdest and most arbitrary mechanic built into the Tree of Life form:

The 20% speed reduction.

Now, I know there are issues with how Remove Curse isn’t available in Tree Form, but even that doesn’t get my goat as much as this ridiculous mechanic. It actually forces druids to not use the form best suited for their job in upper raid boss encounters. When mobility is an issue, you leave your wooden hide behind and muck it up in caster form.

Well, you say, this is easy enough to do and not that detrimental. Why do we care?

I’ll tell you why.

Look at your Shadow Priest. See that nice, pretty Shadowform? Would you ask the priest to leave Shadowform to DPS? No? What about a Moonkin? Bear tanks? No? So they never, even when mobility is involved, have to leave the forms which maximize their abilities? But, say, if we resto druids have to move a lot on, perhaps, Archimonde, it’s best the Tree is, well, not a tree.

Well, we ask them to switch out if we need an emergency off-healer, you say. And I would reply, of course you do. Because that was not the role that form was designed for. If I’m in a fight where I cannot heal, I am out of tree form and putting up Insect Swarm and Moonfire. But if I’m in a fight where I expect to heal, I expect to be in the form best suited for my intended role.

Being able to “get away” is highly important in many later raid fights. Being in tree form, rather than being an asset to your raid through auras and mana longevity, makes you a detriment to your raid. If you can’t run out of Doomfires, if you take a second longer in the Volcanoes, you are a problem. Most likely, you are also dead.

I am often placed in the main tank group so that my aura can affect as many tanks as possible, increasing the healing output of all healers assigned to them. On half of the fights TK and up, however, I’m a fixture without utility in that group, waiting for trash so my aura can go back up. I cannot keep up with the pain train through gauntlets like the one in ZA or the one before Reliquary of Souls in my Tree Form, and those are perhaps where mana efficiency and a steady stream of good healing on the tanks is needed the most. Half of the Kael encounter I am out of form, I am out of form for Archimonde, Supremus, Void Reaver, even Netherspite, for crying out loud, all because of some silly, weird, completely arbitrary 20% speed decrease.

Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to how this ridiculous mechanic is necessary. I cannot think of a single reason to keep this mechanic in the tree. Perhaps it is to keep Restoration druids from increasing their healing output in arenas. However, Tree of Life aura is increased by a quarter of your Spirit. Arena gear has no spirit, so healing will be increased only marginally. There is also still the danger of being banished while in form and being out of a fight for much too long. Add in the base mana cost of tree form and it is highly ineffective in arenas.

So, I’ll ask again:

How is the speed reduction anything other than arbitrary?

Aw...

The fun ended...

The thank-you post capped out at 51 pages, 984 replies. I wish I'd gotten the last word, but it's great so many people liked the thread. There were some assholes here and there, but hey, it wouldn't be the WoW forums without them, amirite? ;) And still, even trying to be jerks, they did a very nice thing; they bumped the thread up for more people to see it.

I know a lot of people requested for it to be stickied, but in the end, it's not really something that should be, in my humble opinion. Well, it shouldn't need to be stickied. People should just thank each other all the time, even for little things.

Well, I'll leave it up to you guys, you faithful or unfaithful, new or old readers. What should happen now?

Should I repost the thank you thread? It seems a little like spam, but it made so many people happy as well.

Should I let it die? It seems almost a shame to let it die, after so long.

Should I make a new, different thank you thread? It would be nice, but almost contrived if I have to search for something to be thankful for.

Should I section off all the little bits of it, and put them in each class's forums? I think some people did that already.

Well? Any ideas, or requests? Such a simple thing has grown to mean a lot to me, and apparantly to a lot of other people. It seems a shame it must all end now because of a comment cap.

roflpwnt

Okay, so this is over 2 years old.

All in all, though...made me laugh. Double-post!