After getting everything in order I went raiding with my baby-alt druid and her guild downed LK25 for the first time, and later that night downed Heroic Sindragosa 10 man for the first time.  I was happy to be restored in time to be a part of that, congratulations Pandemic  Plus, you’ve been waiting a long time for a heroic Sindy video.  I know… my original ten man fall apart after getting drakes, the ten mans in my new guild were almost non-existent, and then I got hacked.  Who’d have though that the video would finally come in the form of my alt-druid?

So anyway… before I give you the video let’s get back to my tragic story.  I got an email today reading this:

Account Name: XXXXXXXX

Reason for Closure: Terms of Use Violation — Exploitative Activity: Abuse of the Economy

This account was closed because one or more characters were identified exchanging, or contributing to the exchange of, in-game property (items or gold) for “real-world” currency. This exchange process negatively impacts the World of Warcraft game environment by detracting from the value of the in-game economy.

Even if this behavior is the result of a third party accessing the account instead of the registered user (for example, a friend, family member, or leveling service) then the account can still be held responsible for the penalty because of the impact it had on the game environment.

We’ve found the above behavior is many times directly related to groups responsible for compromising World of Warcraft accounts; we take these issues very seriously. To better understand our position against exploitative activity and the risks involved, please review this article:http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/antigold.html

The exploitative activity that took place on this account violates the World of Warcraft Terms of Use. We ask you take a moment to review these terms at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html. Any recurring subscriptions on this account have been suspended to prevent further monetary charges.

For any disputes of this action, please visit the Exploitative Activity FAQ and Contact page here: http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/exploitfaq

Regards,

Blizzard Entertainment
www.worldofwarcraft.com

Well… my-oh-my am I surprised.  I am aware that it is possible to hack an authenticator, but that is really really really uncommon.  Also, I armoried myself and my characters still have all their gear.  They haven’t been stripped like they were when I was hacked.  I didn’t do anything weird last night.  I didn’t send or receive any gold, and I only listed about 5 gems on the AH.  I have absolutely no idea what I could have done to trigger this…. *shrug* So, naturally I sent in a mail and got the standard “We received your mail and will get back to you” reply.  I guess we’ll see huh?  It’s like they want me to quite WoW

Heroic Sindragosa Instructional Video

Well the good news is that in the one day I did have my account back I got this video, so here it is

To summarize:

When you have unchained magic, get 20 yards away from everyone to explode, run back, and DON’T cast.

Be pro at LoS in the air phase or you’ll get one shot

In the second phase, fight the temptation to cast while you have unchained magic!!

And on a personal note, I hope this account thing gets resolved sooner rather than later.  It makes me a very sad tree.

Here it is again, a WoW lull.  I really think it’s a combination of things.  For one, summer is here!  Summer just changes things… some people move back home, some go on big vacations, others just like to get out and enjoy the weather.  People just miss more raids.

Then add on the fact that we can sort of see Cataclysm from where we’re standing.  Yeah, it’s a ways off but… we know its coming.  We know it’s only a matter of time before all this stuff is obsolete.  And a lot of people have hit raiding walls.  Your guild has downed all the content it will probably do.  Wiping week after week on the same stuff (when you’re probably training new raiders every week cuz… it’s summer) only to hope that with the next 5% buff you can down one more thing… well a lot of people just give up hope.  So either you’ve downed all you expect to down in ICC, all you’re capable of downing, or you’re just plain bored of running it by now.  Either way, your interest dwindles.

And maybe none of that applies to you, and you’re still raring to go… but as you see the friends and raiders around you dropping one by one… well… it sorta kills your drive doesn’t it?

At the end of Burning Crusade when they talked about having 10 man raids I was really excited.  I loved having and running a guild, but honestly I just don’t like that many people.  I thought it would be great that in WotLK I could finally have a 10 man guild!  Well, as you know that just didn’t work out, people wanted the better gear.  Now here we sit at the end of WotLK and Blizzard is making it look a lot like my hopes are finally coming true.  Ten man content that drops the same gear as 25 man content!  I know a lot of people aren’t a fan of that idea, but I am.  I’d love to be able to raid with a tight-knit group of 10!  Honestly, I’ve half considered starting a 10 man guild right now just to be “ready” for Cataclysm.

So what can I do to keep my interest until then?  Well I ticketed all my BoE gear over to my Alliance server (*fingers crossed they do it*) and hopefully it’ll arrive tonight.  I might piss around with leveling something new… maybe I can convince some friends to join me? Hey, maybe you wanna join me?  Leave a comment, we’ll talk!  I’m thinking a disc priest… that might be fun!  Although I’m sure the last thing I really need is another alt.  Hum… who knows.

Deathbringer Saurfang gains blood power a lot faster on heroic.  Your tanks need to be spot on with their taunts, and nobody can get hit by blood beasts.  Five seconds after the beasts spawn the raid will be slowed by 80% so bear that in mind when choosing kiters/stuns/etc.

So… healers… you’re going to have to deal with healing a lot more marks than you are probably use to.  Plus, if someone with the mark does die he gains 20% life (not the 5% in normal) so it will be a wipe.  We tried to delay the first mark as long as possible.  We ran with 6 paladins so the first 6 bloodboils could be HoPed off.  We would save HoP if it was on a mage (iceblock) a rogue (cloak) or another pali (self bubble) and use it on people in the third round of bloodboil.

We then had an order for all marks.  Pali 1 beacons the first ranged mark, Pali 2 beacons the second ranged mark, Pali 1 pulls off the tanks and heals the third ranged mark along with the first (beacon), Priest 1 heals the forth ranged mark…. you get the idea.  A lot of it was RNGish too, because a shaman’s chain heal is defiantly OP if you get several marks in melee.  As a druid I was HoTting everything with a mark, or a blood boil, or a tank.  Between my hots, pali’s splash heals, judgements and chain heals, melee was fine with no specific healers assigned to them.

I have healbot setup to show “Mark of the Fallen Champion” as a different color, and all bloodboil victims were marked by DBM which also shows on my healbot.  Having those things very visible helps a lot, especial at the end when you may be rolling HoTs on 9-10 people.

Save all cooldowns till that last few percentages when you have a lot of marks.  Our priests all hymned in turn, including our shadow priests.  We also blew divine sacrifice near the end of the fight.

If you have other tips, please leave them in the comments, I’m sure people would love to hear what you did!

So… no Sindragosa for you, but lets roll with Putricide!

Professor Putricide Heroic (10 Man)

There are two major changes to this fight in the heroic version.  The first and most challenging of these changes is the casting of the Unbound Plague.  This debuff lasts 60 seconds, and increases its damage with every tick you take.  Because of this it will eventually one-shot you, so you want to pass it off to another player after about 12 seconds.  To pass if off you simply pass within 3 yards of the player, they will then get the plague and you will get “Plague Sickness”.   While you suffer from Plague Sickness any plague damage you take is increased by 300% so you don’t want to contract the plague again until this debuff wears off.

You need to stay spread out to not accidently pass the plague around.  You also need to be VERY vocal on vent, so the entire raid knows who has the plague, and who they plan to give it to next.  Adding Plague Sickness to show on your grid or healbot will aid in choosing targets, but they are best chosen based on audio cues.

The other change is that during transitions you are no longer stunned.  Instead he releases an orange and green ooze at the same time.  Make sure your abomination has enough energy going into transition to stun both.  Also, be sure to control when the transitions occur to avoiding having 3 slimes up at a time.

On the video we are using two tanks and three healers.  I know it can be done with two, but we choose to be cautious and use three  Hopefully the video is of some use when your guild tackles this fight!

I’m going to start off with heroic Blood Queen Lana’thel, who from everything I read was suppose to be a healing check.  Basically everything about this fight is the same as it is in regular mode with one exception.  In heroic mode, Blood Queen Lana’thel gains a stack of Presence of the Darkfallen for each vampire present. Each stack of this buff increases the power of her Shroud of Sorrow for 5%.  So towards the end, you have quite a few vampires, and the damage is significantly more intense than it is in regular.

That being said, we did this with five healers, and I honestly never felt like the healing was stressful.  Obviously some of that can be attributed to the fact that the other four were all very good healers.  The other thing was that we saved all of our raid cooldowns until the end of the fight.  For example, we usually have our paladin D-sac during the first flight phase, and both of our priest hymn for the second flight phase.  For heroic we had to survive the “stupid check” of spreading out without help, so these cooldowns could be burned at the end, usually during a Pact of the Darkfallen.

As far as druid healing goes on this… honestly…. rejuv, rejuv, rejuv, rejuv, rejuv, wild growth…. repeat.  I think I throw out a regrowth or two on really low people during flight phase.  But for the most part, if the other healers in your group are competent, then you serve the raid best by spamming raid heals.

Heroic Festergut

I thought about this for a bit… is it a healing check or a DPS check… in the end I concluded it was just a stupid check.  The difference between this and the regular version is that Professor Putriced throws down Malleable Goo throughout the fight.  And of course, the goo has the same effect it does on the PP fight, it slows down your attack speed and casting speed.  So of course, if most of your DPS is getting hit with it, their DPS will go way down, and it does become a DPS race to the enrage timer… or if most of your healers get hit, their heals go out a lot slower, and then it becomes a struggle to keep people up.

If interested we did this with two tanks and five healers.

See, when this heroic first came out, it was a bit of a challenge to judge where the goo was headed.  And because of that, this fight was a bit more challenging.  But recently they changed it so that a puddle will show on the ground where the goo will ultimately land.  So now it just becomes a “move out of the circle of bad stuff” normal everyday mechanic.  By adding a graphic, they really nerfed the fight.

A few things to remember.  For the most part it’s just like the normal version of the fight.  It is more important now that you actually get all three of your inoculations.  Move out of the green puddles on the ground… the effect of malleable goo is larger than the circle on the ground so stay way clear of them.  Keep up range check so you don’t chain puke.  And that’s all!

A Poll

Heroic Gunship

As much as gunship is LOL lootship in regular, the same applies to the heroic version of this fight.  Ok, the rockets knock you back, and the ship and mage have more health… but it’s the same basic show up and get your free loot fight.  I made a video of our last heroic gunship showing how seriously we took this fight, I hope it makes you smile

Heroic Rotface

After the gunship (the obvious first heroic), the next on the list is probably Heroic Rotface.  I can tell you that we’ve one-shot this every time on 10 man… and something like 3-shot it our first week in 25 man.  So, yeah there is a slight idiot-factor like any fight, but it’s really not a lot different than regular Rotface.

So what is different? Well for one, Putricide casts Vial Gas on people throughout the fight.  If you don’t recall, vial gas is the spell that’s usually cast during Festergut that makes you vomit and chains to nearby players.  Well the same principals apply, as far as spreading out so that you don’t chain the vomiting. Use /range or proximity. He’ll only cast it on the ranged, as long as you have enough.  So where we use to have everyone stacking in melee on this fight, we now sent a few out to ranged deal with this.  But this vial gas is MUCH weaker than the stuff you get on Festergut.  It doesn’t hurt as much, it doesn’t last as long.  It will still kill you if you chain it in melee, but it’s not an issue for the ranged.

The other thing that’s different is that the mutated infection reduces healing by 75% instead of 50% on normal.  We dispelled them right away when people got them on heroic.  You just have to be careful to get out quickly, so you don’t accidentally form big-slimes in the middle of the raid.    How ever many healers you use on normal should be fine for heroic.  For us that’s two and five.

Watching the video is the most useful way to get the jist of this fight, however I have done a very quick summary of each phase below to help you remember after you’ve watched the video.

Phase 1:

The raid forms a triangle with one point being the tank, the Lich King, the adds, and the melee.  The second point of the triangle is the off tank and the shambling horrors, and the third point of the triangle is the ranged and healers.  When someone gets Necrotic Plague, they need to run over to the shambling horror and have it cleansed within 5 seconds.

Unless you have a disc priest raid-shielding, make sure the entire raid is blanket with HoTs before every Infest cast.

Transition 1:

Run to the edge.  The off tank should stay away from the raid until the Shambling Horror dies of disease.  Each target for Raging Spirit should run next to a tank, so the tank can pickup the spirit as it spawns.  Someone should be assigned to killing frost orbs.  The raid should stay spread out to minimize raid damage.  DPS is on the Raging Spirits.

Phase 2:

Stack up slightly off center for Val’kyrs.  Once they choose a target, spread out for Defile.  Repeat.  Also, assign stun order for the Val’kyrs to ensure they are slowed enough to be killed before they drop their victims.

Continue with HoTs for Infest

Transition 2:

Same as transition one, only there are now four raging spirits instead of three.  Blow heroism/blood lust.

Phase 3:

Spread out.  Kill and kite vial spirits.  Heal though Harvest Soul.  If you are teleported to Frostmourn, interrupt the Spirit Warden (Bash or War Stomp) and heal King Terenas to full.

Continue with HoTs for Infest

–Get 1 Shot–

….. lots of talking … but… You’ve Won!!

Phase 4:

Get rezed…. Pew Pew Win!  *celebrate*

Let me start off by saying the stats on Trauma suck.  No, they do, you can’t argue that.  No spirit, not even the less desirable m/5… same spell power as on any other main hand or staff from ICC, nothing great… so what makes it desirable?

Each time your spells heal a target you have a chance to cause the target of your heal to heal themselves and friends within 10 yards for 245 each sec for 6 sec.

This proc is what makes this weapon so interesting for druid healers.  Each time your spell heals a target… not each time you cast a spell… each time the spell heals.  So every click of rejuvenation, ever click of wild growth, ever click of any of our HoTs has a chance to proc this weapon.  And boy does it… 1% chance per HoT tick, no internal cool down.

On a fight like Blood Queen, the proc (Fountain of Light) heals for 5-6% of my healing in a 25 man regular setting.  On Sindragosa, where I have long periods with limited casting and more wild growth… it makes up more like 8-10% of my healing.

Now I’m not saying it’s the best for every circumstance.  For example, on Deathbringer Saurfang, the proc probably won’t do you much good.  And you also need gear good enough to “soak up” the stat loss you take by using it… but for a lot of fights, as a raid healer, I’m sad (as a staff & stats lover) to say this really is our BIS.

I’ll still keep a staff around for some fights, and I’ll pick up Sundial of Eternal Dusk as my offhand.  Looks like (unless they nerf  it) this is the bad boy I’ll be ending WotLK with!

On a side note… sorry for the lack of updates recently.  As you all know I recently started my own guild, Sated.  Boy does that take a lot of time to get up and going!  Then, once that started to settle down, the stomach flu made it’s rounds at my house  But now we’re all healthy, the guild is up and running, and it’s back to regular posting!  I hope to have a new video up by the end of the week!