Opening with a LB 3-stack sounds like you're in for major mana usage. You also leave yourself open to a big hit right after the pull, since LB's healing will be ramping up slowly and you won't have anything Swiftmendable until 4+seconds in.
Personally I get a RG+RJ on the tank about 5 seconds before the pull when someone actually bothers to say 'I'm pulling.' On those spur-of-the-moment 'Holy shit the tank's halfway to General/Onyxia/Anub already while I'm still back here sitting on the fish feast' type moments (which happen more often than not), I throw a RJ while running and SM as soon as he's down by half or more, then get a RG on him as soon as I can afford to stand still.
I also heal entirely with Nourishes, by the way. Lifebloom has mana cooties. You're all infected and you don't even realize it. Seriously, LB's totally optional nowadays. Don't think you're chained to it the way you would have been in BC.
What you heal the tank with depends on your job in the raid. In 10 mans our resto druid hardly ever casts anything on me but Rejuv while i'm tanking. If another healer is snobolded or something on Gormok heroic he'll throw regrowth or swiftmend if needed, but his main job is just keeping rejuv and wild growth on the raid. Our other healers are a holy paladin and disc priest, so of course things change based on your makeup.
Phase 3 is hell as a healer. "Oh sure, spread around, don't all go standing in one place where my Chain Heal/Wild Growth can hit us all".
I've always found phase 3 of the black knight to be cake. By the end of phase 2 I try to top everyone off and have a few HoTs rolling, then a few seconds into P3 I pop barkskin/tranquility and leave the rest up to the dps. Unless they're wearing greens or are "'pants on head' retarded", this should put the boss within a stone's throw of being dead. If not, well, good luck.
I find P2 to be the vastly more dangerous part of the encounter, depending on the type and quality of the tank. Either I have a good tank (or a bad druid that understands to just spam swipe) and things are fairly easy, or the tank is bad or slow on their AoE threat (or the DPS are early on their aoe damage) and I have shit running all over the place eating people, including me.
Heroic ToC was a bit intimidating, but it's getting to be less so nowadays, especially now that I'm geared to the teeth (compared to previously) as a bear tank, which is my prefered role unless we really need a healer and a well geared alternate tank is available.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Ok, apparently I can't help but suck up tanking Koralon. Can't tell if its something I'm doing wrong or if I just need to stop running pugs. I'm sitting between 34K health, 38.27% dodge, 28.6K armor and 40.1K health, 31.36% dodge, 27.7K armor self buffed depending on how much stamina gear I toss on . The last run I was on we seemed to be pretty consistently getting him to about half health and then something would happen while Molten Fists was up and either me or the off tank would go down like a $2 hooker.
Should my stats be enough for the fight (and, if not, what should I be looking for)? Armory
The only thing I can think of that you can change is sitting in the fires. I generally move around the outer ring (the center is colored similarly to the fires) every few seconds to make things easier on the dps. So long as there is no fire, I sit still during Fists to make sure stacking is properly done.
Problems outside your control:
-DPS is incredibly slow and he's getting too many stacks of his damage buff.
-DPS is eating AoE damage like a bitch and it's diverting healing from you.
-You don't have a holy paladin (stupid good for this fight, really).
-You don't have any form of Fire Resistance buff.
I do this shit in PvP gear, and it generally goes alright. I'm pretty sure Molten Fists is not physical, so you really should focus on stamina. Ditto for the off-tank. Maybe save Barkskin for the second or third Fisting.
Molten Fists is pure fire damage, so the sponge tank should worry about nothing but stamina. Avoidance is pointless for that role. If he happens to be one of the rare tanks with some of the decent TBC fire resist gear, that's probably worth putting on for the massive damage reduction vs. loss in stam.
/cancelform [nostance:5]
/cast [flyable, nocombat, nostance, noswimming] Swift Flight Form; [nostance, swimming] Aquatic Form; [nostance] Travel Form
Bound to shift+mousewheel up!
For the better part of the last year, I've been running from like, the inn to the bank while mashing this and getting 'You can't use that here' 5 times and basically just running the whole way on foot like a loser. Or preemptively giving up and going cat for the 30% boost.
I assume you tried briefly pausing once outside, to shift to travel form before moving again? I've had huge delays in the game realizing that I'm outdoors, and pausing right outside immediately fixes it.
I assume you tried briefly pausing once outside, to shift to travel form before moving again? I've had huge delays in the game realizing that I'm outdoors, and pausing right outside immediately fixes it.
I remember when they fixed this bug (I think it was during TBC) and then broke it again later.
No no no. Totally functional macro, has been for ever and ever.
Just saying Dalaran is in Northrend, and it was flagged as [flyable] for macros (like mounts), even when it wasn't allowed outside of the flight master area.
Was a major pain in the ass when I had all my travel shifts lumped into one button. It wouldn't cycle through to travel form because it kept thinking I was trying to go bird.
I'll admit I might be a bit slow on the uptake on noticing the fix, but I swear it's at least only been changed in the last month or so.
To what extent do you guys think I could match or veeerry nearly match my feral levelling speed, at level 74, with balance?
I'm thinking about switching briefly to give it a try. At the launch of of WoTLK, with my good feral gear and not so hot balance gear, it was a pretty big difference.
What glyphs would I use? Starfire doesn't seem impressive because mobs wouldn't last long enough to really use it, innervate seems to give a pretty crappy mana return, and the two dot glyphs might not be so great for the same reason as starfire.
Root, Starfall, Typhoon, and Wrath all could help levelling somewhat. Make sure you have a set of SP gear if you're switching to Balance, because witrhout that you might as well be specced feral for how much damage you'll be putting out.
Most of my moonkin grinding at 80 involved running through an area casting moonfire and insect swarm on mobs, and then running back through the same area looting all the corpses, so I'd go with insect swarm and moonfire if I had to pick just two. Starfire is purely a raiding glyph, leveling mobs won't live long enough for it to matter. Entangling Roots is a bad glyph... I tried it for a bit and the roots still break as soon as you put any non-DoT dps on a target.
What's the consensus on gemming in ToC? I'm all 10 agi/15 stam at the moment and sitting at 55K HP raid buffed. If I regemmed to all 30 STAM and got the last few upgrades I needed, I'm fairly confident I could be near 60K. Is this too much HP? Should I work in some 20 AGI now?
After realizing I have far too many tanks... and that my druid tank in BC was much more awesome than in WotLK... I finally respecced to Resto.
What the fuck, man? This is ridiculous. Druid healing is so boring... I would throw up HoTs then switch to catform or something just to find something to do. I never went below 75% mana, no one died... I even told the tank to remove his shield or sit down for some crits once in a while to spice things up.
Most healers reach that stage eventually, but yeah druid healing is pretty cruisy overall. Just gotta hit up some more challenging content, make some challenging content or take more clothes off.
Druid healing: I love it. Especially with a primarily ranged or melee group (tank and 3 ranged or tank and mostly melee) wherein wild growth makes the whole group mostly low maintenance. Not having to coddle every single party member, but instead just throwing around HoTs on those unlikely to take much more punishment and then going back to the tank is fine by me, especially when grinding out heroics.
The times I work most is when I have to focus on both 'ranges' and they're far enough apart that each member actually requires individual attention (beyond just wildgrowthing the larger of the two that is).
As long as people don't stand in bad shit, I'm fine with it, though I will admit that non-tanks who stand in whirlwinds might die a little moreso than others.
Less due to lacking healing, and more because I spent 4 years as a rogue, and as such I figure others who play melee classes should learn to get out of that shit like I had to.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Most healers reach that stage eventually, but yeah druid healing is pretty cruisy overall. Just gotta hit up some more challenging content, make some challenging content or take more clothes off.
I am at that stage right now, at level 74. I think the tanks I'm playing with need to pull faster and more mobs. As it is, I just stay out of treeform and cast starfire.
Also, preliminary results tell me that balance still feels noticeably slower. There's a lot of little things that add up on the mana usage, like every time I mount up for a brief run and then shift back into moonkin after, and healing myself takes longer as well. I was generally just using moonfire(because I have the lvl 70 badge idol that procs spell power) and starfire.
I did however hold back on three talent points, which can be dumped into intensity and I'll see how much that helps.
When I have a group with melee/range characters in it, I generally will run somewhere between the two groups and cast Wild Growth on myself.
Yeah, I've been mastering using myself as the target to get as many people as possible, but I typically prefer to be as far back from the action as possible. Old habit from too many crappy tanks, where buying yourself those few extra seconds before the mob they forgot to attack runs over to violate me in the face were often crucial.
Now that all classes have improved AOE tanking abilities, I often find the safest place to be is to be vaguely parked right up the tank's ass (aside from cleaves, breath weapons and short range aoe abilities, that is), at least on fights that involve adds.
Black Knight phase 1 and 2? I'm crammed so far up there the tank is usually asking why I haven't bought them dinner yet, and it keeps me alive.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
You can... it just shifts you out. Like every other form.
That makes sense. Guess because you are vaguely humanoid I figured you could mount. It's been so nice since they moved the form mana reduction from the PvP talent to the PvE so I never have to worry about shifting too often anymore.
Most healers reach that stage eventually, but yeah druid healing is pretty cruisy overall. Just gotta hit up some more challenging content, make some challenging content or take more clothes off.
Never the wrong answer. If it is getting too easy, this will definitely make things harder.
Most healers reach that stage eventually, but yeah druid healing is pretty cruisy overall. Just gotta hit up some more challenging content, make some challenging content or take more clothes off.
Never the wrong answer. If it is getting too easy, this will definitely make things harder.
Gift of the Earthmother: Redesigned. This talent now increases spell haste and reduces the base global cooldown by 2/4/6/8/10% instead of its previous effect.
Alright, maybe I'm reading this talent wrong, but it looks like we're getting half of the previous-and-too-easily-capped GCD effect, except now it applies to every spell and now we get a flat 10% spell haste on top of that. With the same 5 talent points.
Assuming I did it right and both portions apply to the gcd (which is a fair assumption) we need 786 haste to cap at 1s now without any haste buffs and CF. Up from 655, but less than the 1193 previously on the PTR and it applies to all spells.
I like it. This part has me confused tho.
Gift of the Earthmother now also reduces the base cooldown of your Lifebloom spell by 2/4/6/8/10%.
Maybe the gcd bonus mentioned in the notes only applies to Lifebloom? Or does lifebloom get a 20% reduction for pvp reasons? They talked about not wanting to hurt lifeblooms role in pvp.
Posts
Nourish is used if additional healing is still required.
My favorite tanks are the ones that only need Rejuv to stay topped off.
Personally I get a RG+RJ on the tank about 5 seconds before the pull when someone actually bothers to say 'I'm pulling.' On those spur-of-the-moment 'Holy shit the tank's halfway to General/Onyxia/Anub already while I'm still back here sitting on the fish feast' type moments (which happen more often than not), I throw a RJ while running and SM as soon as he's down by half or more, then get a RG on him as soon as I can afford to stand still.
I also heal entirely with Nourishes, by the way. Lifebloom has mana cooties. You're all infected and you don't even realize it. Seriously, LB's totally optional nowadays. Don't think you're chained to it the way you would have been in BC.
I'm typically not tank healing though, pretty much only in a weird VoA or Ony 10 setup.
I've always found phase 3 of the black knight to be cake. By the end of phase 2 I try to top everyone off and have a few HoTs rolling, then a few seconds into P3 I pop barkskin/tranquility and leave the rest up to the dps. Unless they're wearing greens or are "'pants on head' retarded", this should put the boss within a stone's throw of being dead. If not, well, good luck.
I find P2 to be the vastly more dangerous part of the encounter, depending on the type and quality of the tank. Either I have a good tank (or a bad druid that understands to just spam swipe) and things are fairly easy, or the tank is bad or slow on their AoE threat (or the DPS are early on their aoe damage) and I have shit running all over the place eating people, including me.
Heroic ToC was a bit intimidating, but it's getting to be less so nowadays, especially now that I'm geared to the teeth (compared to previously) as a bear tank, which is my prefered role unless we really need a healer and a well geared alternate tank is available.
Should my stats be enough for the fight (and, if not, what should I be looking for)?
Armory
Problems outside your control:
-DPS is incredibly slow and he's getting too many stacks of his damage buff.
-DPS is eating AoE damage like a bitch and it's diverting healing from you.
-You don't have a holy paladin (stupid good for this fight, really).
-You don't have any form of Fire Resistance buff.
I do this shit in PvP gear, and it generally goes alright. I'm pretty sure Molten Fists is not physical, so you really should focus on stamina. Ditto for the off-tank. Maybe save Barkskin for the second or third Fisting.
What's excessive crit?
GREATEST CHANGE EVER.
My one-button travel macro is now WotLK-compatible. A year later.
Oooh. What about Krasus' Landing and the other flyable bits of Dalaran (the surrounding rocks etc)?
What macro is this?
Oh well, just stick your ground mount on [button:2], it's what I do.
Edit fuck i posted in yet another class thread that i don't have a toon of
fuck fuck not another blue dot
Bound to shift+mousewheel up!
For the better part of the last year, I've been running from like, the inn to the bank while mashing this and getting 'You can't use that here' 5 times and basically just running the whole way on foot like a loser. Or preemptively giving up and going cat for the 30% boost.
Wooo.
I'm not sure but mine works and that's the main difference between them.
Just saying Dalaran is in Northrend, and it was flagged as [flyable] for macros (like mounts), even when it wasn't allowed outside of the flight master area.
Was a major pain in the ass when I had all my travel shifts lumped into one button. It wouldn't cycle through to travel form because it kept thinking I was trying to go bird.
I'll admit I might be a bit slow on the uptake on noticing the fix, but I swear it's at least only been changed in the last month or so.
I'm thinking about switching briefly to give it a try. At the launch of of WoTLK, with my good feral gear and not so hot balance gear, it was a pretty big difference.
What glyphs would I use? Starfire doesn't seem impressive because mobs wouldn't last long enough to really use it, innervate seems to give a pretty crappy mana return, and the two dot glyphs might not be so great for the same reason as starfire.
What the fuck, man? This is ridiculous. Druid healing is so boring... I would throw up HoTs then switch to catform or something just to find something to do. I never went below 75% mana, no one died... I even told the tank to remove his shield or sit down for some crits once in a while to spice things up.
BORING... but awesome.
The times I work most is when I have to focus on both 'ranges' and they're far enough apart that each member actually requires individual attention (beyond just wildgrowthing the larger of the two that is).
As long as people don't stand in bad shit, I'm fine with it, though I will admit that non-tanks who stand in whirlwinds might die a little moreso than others.
Less due to lacking healing, and more because I spent 4 years as a rogue, and as such I figure others who play melee classes should learn to get out of that shit like I had to.
I am at that stage right now, at level 74. I think the tanks I'm playing with need to pull faster and more mobs. As it is, I just stay out of treeform and cast starfire.
Also, preliminary results tell me that balance still feels noticeably slower. There's a lot of little things that add up on the mana usage, like every time I mount up for a brief run and then shift back into moonkin after, and healing myself takes longer as well. I was generally just using moonfire(because I have the lvl 70 badge idol that procs spell power) and starfire.
I did however hold back on three talent points, which can be dumped into intensity and I'll see how much that helps.
You can... it just shifts you out. Like every other form.
Yeah, I've been mastering using myself as the target to get as many people as possible, but I typically prefer to be as far back from the action as possible. Old habit from too many crappy tanks, where buying yourself those few extra seconds before the mob they forgot to attack runs over to violate me in the face were often crucial.
Now that all classes have improved AOE tanking abilities, I often find the safest place to be is to be vaguely parked right up the tank's ass (aside from cleaves, breath weapons and short range aoe abilities, that is), at least on fights that involve adds.
Black Knight phase 1 and 2? I'm crammed so far up there the tank is usually asking why I haven't bought them dinner yet, and it keeps me alive.
That makes sense. Guess because you are vaguely humanoid I figured you could mount. It's been so nice since they moved the form mana reduction from the PvP talent to the PvE so I never have to worry about shifting too often anymore.
Never the wrong answer. If it is getting too easy, this will definitely make things harder.
Also, it's kinda tall.
i see what you did there ... :whistle:
Alright, maybe I'm reading this talent wrong, but it looks like we're getting half of the previous-and-too-easily-capped GCD effect, except now it applies to every spell and now we get a flat 10% spell haste on top of that. With the same 5 talent points.
I feel like this is almost a buff.
I like it. This part has me confused tho.
Maybe the gcd bonus mentioned in the notes only applies to Lifebloom? Or does lifebloom get a 20% reduction for pvp reasons? They talked about not wanting to hurt lifeblooms role in pvp.
Hell, my hunter got a ghost wolf pet. I'm gonna remain steadfast in my belief that this just might happen eventually.