A Resto Druid's Guide: Mimiron

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"We haven't much time, friends! You're going to help me test out my latest and greatest creation. Now, before you change your minds, remember, that you kind of owe it to me after the mess you made with the XT-002..."


Teehee. Yeah, we did kinda pwn him, didn't we. Sorry bout that. AND YOU'RE NEXT!



Mimiron has a ton of different phases and a ton of different abilities. It's quite a doozy. Keep in mind that a large percentage of his abilities will one-shot people if they're not standing in the right place or moving in the right way. So if you get into phase 4 with half the raid dead, there's a fairly good chance that a lot of those deaths were completely avoidable by the people who died. I'm not saying the healing isn't hard - it IS hard, and people WILL die if you don't lay down some crazy leet heals. But I mean, one of his abilities does 5 million damage. Yeah. "MMK LET ME JUST LIFEBLOOM U BEFORE U GET HIT BY THAT K LOL" not so much. I just don't want you guys to do what I did, which is completely beat myself up over not keeping the raid alive. Sometimes it's NOT the healer's fault. I think this fight is a good example of that.

Also, be prepared to swear up a storm during this fight.

Ok, so with that in mind, let's see if we can break it down into chewable parts here.

Phase 1: Our guild puts two healers in each section of the room. See how the room is divided into 3 sections of pie? (mmm, pie) There's the right section, the left section, and the back section. 2 healers for each section. You and the other healer in your section will want to spread out a bit to cover the whole area.

What do I need to look out for in Phase 1? Aw, look! The Leviathan MKII! It's like a mini Flame Levi. Cute! Also, deadly. Don't stand near melee range. There are two things that he does that will affect the melee - first, he puts down Proximity mines in a circle around him. Secondly, he does an 15 yard AoE Shock Blast that will one-shot you. The melee have to run out when he casts this AND avoid the mines - you simply have to stand out of range the entire time and heal stuff =)

So what am I healing? Two things. One: the tank. The tank will take standard damage, until Plasma Blast. Plasma Blast is kind of like Steelbreaker's Fusion Punch, except no one can cleanse it, and it does more damage. Yeah. You want every hot you've got rolling on the tank PLUS you want to spam Nourish. All of your healers need to be spamming every heal they've got into the main tank at this point. It's scary. You will freak out. Weeeeee!!

The second thing you'll be healing are people who get targeted with Napalm Shells. You have to be fast with these guys - get the Napalmed person hotted up as quick as you can. You'll need some Nourishes to top them off, too, and maybe a Swiftmend if they get really low. It's massive damage. Note that you're probably only responsible for the people in your slice of the pie. If someone across the room is getting Napalmed, you're going to be out of range - you'll need to trust your other healers to heal them up. It's scary. You will freak out. Woohoo!!

Keep doing what you're doing, pray a bit to the healy gods, and hope that you can get through phase 1 with no one dying. Once you DO get through phase 1, there's a little break where he talks a bit, and you can take a breather. Phew!

What do I need to look out for in Phase 2? Phase 2 is the VX-001. Once phase 1 is over and the Proximity Mines explode for good, you can move up more towards melee range. Moving towards the center helps get more people within your range to heal, and it also helps when you run away from the P3Wx2 laser barrage (more on this later). Your ranged DPS should also group up on you, to form a tightly knit group. These people are your responsibility in phase 2! Don't let them down! There are a few things you need to be aware of in this phase. First, there is a lot of raid damage going out with Heat Wave. Rejuvs around the raid and WGs can help heal up quite a bit of the damage, but you'll probably find yourself playing catch up with Nourish after a while.

If someone in your group is targeted by Rapid Burst (basically the VX-001 turns towards you and starts rapidly firing lasers at you), you're going to need to heal up everyone in your group quickly. Nourishes and Swiftmend, with a dash of Barkskin on yourself if you're getting low on health is a good way to go. It helps to always keep a rejuv on everyone in your group just in cause VX-001 decides to Rapid Burst your group. You don't want to be caught unprepared.

And Rocket Strike. Rocket Strike does 5 million fire damage to you if you stand in it. LOLFACE. It is a glowing red circle on the ground. Do. Not. Stand. In. It. I know you WANT to stand it in, just to be cool like Kologarn. But no. Get out get out get out. Stop what you're doing and run.

Ok, so you're healing people through the Rapid Bursts, you're WGing the melee through Heat Wave, and you're dancing around the Rocket Strikes. Now what?

Watch for his Spin Up. It's a four second cast, and once he's done spinning up, he'll unleash his P3Wx2 (that's right, pewpew!) Laser Barrage. Look where the cannons are pointing. Pain and damage and all things evil in the form of lasers are going to pour out of those cannons while they do a slow clockwise 120 degree sweep of the room. They'll one shot you, so, run away! If you look up at the cannons and they're pointing towards your left side, then you're going to be fine where you are, because they're going to sweep towards the left. But if the cannons are pointing towards your right side, they're going to move directly into you, so run away clockwise! A few times, I've shifted into kitty and dashed just to make sure I got away fast enough. If you think you're pretty close to getting hit, I'd recommend the same. Note: remember how I said before that you should move up a bit and get closer into melee range at the beginning of this phase? It's because taking a tighter route around him during the Laser Barrage will get you to safety quicker than taking a LONGER route around the outside/middle of the room. A tighter circle = a shorter route!

Phase 2 sounds pretty evil. Is Phase 3 any easier? Eh. Not really. It just gets more chaotic from here on out. There are a lot of adds that spawn, and there are a lot of tanks running around to pick them up. Let's break this down.

First, you're fighting the Aerial Command Unit, which is a flying... head. You're going to need a ranged tank on it - preferably a warlock, although we've had a priest or a mage tank it at various times in a pinch.

Every two seconds, the head will fire a Plasma Ball at the ranged tank, which hit pretty hard. If you're assigned as the designated healer for the ranged tank, you're going to want to roll all of your hots on her, plus hit up Nourish when necessary. It's constant heavy damage, so concentrate on keeping your hots from falling off.

What about the adds? Meanwhile, the rest of the raid is picking up adds. There are three different kind of adds:

1. Junk Bots, which appear from the green portals. These aren't too dangerous.
2. Bomb Bots - these target a specific players and chase them, and then explode after about 15 seconds. They'll do over 20k damage to everyone around them, so get away from them! These should be kited away from the rest of the raid. Make sure that whoever they're targeting has some hots on them to counteract the aftermath of the explosion..... if they survive.
3. Assault Bots - these appear from the orange portals. These have the potential to do a crapton of damage because of their Magnetic Field - but that should be dispelled, which makes our job easier =) These also drop a Magnetic Core thingy, that can be used to draw the Aerial Command Unit down to the ground, where it will take increased damage.

So, if you're assigned to heal the ranged tank, you're going to want to really focus on that. Lots of hots and Nourish. There will be one tank designated to deal with Assault bots, and the other tanky people are going to be picking up the Junk Bots. If you're assigned to any of the tanks picking up adds, make sure you roll your hots on them and don't let them get out of range. They move around quite a bit to pick up spawning adds. If you start to get Grid/Healbot tunnel vision, you might suddenly see that the tank isn't in range. Oh crap. So make sure you stay right with them.

Note... if you get Grid/Healbot tunnel vision at really ANY point in the fight, you're going to die. It's true. This ain't Patchwerk anymore, where you just sit and click. You need to have massive situational awareness in this fight. Don't get tunnel vision!

What's with Phase 4? All the pieces that you just killed now come together to create the V-07-TR-0N. You'll want to group up in a similar fashion to Phase 1 - in your designated slice of pie with one other healer, with a few dps grouped up on you. Phase 4 is basically everything that happened in phase 1, 2, and 3, except now they happen ALL TOGETHER. There are two tanks - one is the main tank from phase 1, tanking the bottom part, and the other is the ranged tank from phase 3 taking the Plasma Balls.

Here's what you need to look out for.

1. The Proximity Mines and the Shock Blast will still happen, but that's for the melee to look out for. Just stand at range like in phase 1, and you'll be fine.
2. You'll need to look out for Rocket Strikes - the red circle on the ground that will do 5 mil damage to you.
3. Rapid Burst from Phase 2 will still happen - make sure to be quick about healing you and your group.
4. Spin up + P3Wx2 Laser Barrage. Keep in mind that you CAN'T "cut corners" and run in a tight circle around him to avoid this, because the proximity mines will be there. I've definitely eaten a proxy mine before doing that and it's really, really, annoying. So remember that you'll have to run wide. This is where kitteh + dash really comes in handy.
5. And the Plasma Ball on the ranged tank.

What's NOT going on in Phase 4? Well, there's no Plasma Blast on the main tank, so tank healing isn't too strenuous. And there's no Heat Wave doing AoE damage. There are also no adds to worry about.

So basically you have to stay out of melee range, heal the ranged tank, avoid Rocket Strikes, heal through Rapid Bursts, and avoid the pewpew laser barrage. EASY AS PIE LOL. Oh, and did I mention that each part needs to die within 10 seconds of each other?

LOOT!

[Asimov's Drape]
The token for [Conqueror's Nightsong Handguards]
[Malleable Steelweave Mantle]
[Pandora's Plea]

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A Resto Druid's Guide: Freya

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Freya is kind of a pansy. But I don't blame her too much. If I were a boss who was getting killed all the time, I'd attempt to protect myself with absurd amounts of trash, too. Not that it helps her or anything. MWUAHAHAHA

Once you've gotten through all the trash, you're ready to take on Freya herself. She starts off with 150 stacks of Attuned to Nature, and the only way to reduce this stack to 0 is by killing all the mobs that she spawns.

Who's tanking? You're going to have one tank on Freya, and two others to pick up various adds during the first series of phases.

Where should I stand? Pretty much in the middle of all the action, with a couple exceptions - until you get to Phase 2, with the seedling bombs. We'll talk about that later.

What's going to happen? Well, the first phase is made up of 3 mini-phases, that are repeated twice - so 6 mini-phases all together. These mini-phases can come in any order. The only thing you know is that each one will occur twice. They'll spawn every minute, so if you've got high raid dps, you might find yourself with a bit of time between phases. If your raid dps is a little low, you might find yourself overwhelmed with adds towards the end.

Throughout ALL of these phases, there are a couple things you should watch for: 1. You might hear your raid leader say "Tree in the raid" or "Tree near the river" or something like that - periodically, Freya will start to grow a glowing tree, which will have to be dpsed down as soon as possible, lest it heal Freya and her adds. It doesn't do damage to anyone, though, so as a resto druid you don't need to worry much about it. 2. Freya sometimes will Sunbeam someone in the raid. I'll be honest with you all, I literally just found out about this ability like, 3 minutes ago. I asked my raid leader to look over this guide to see if I missed anything and he was like, "Sunbeam!" I was like, "Sunbeam? Wtf is that." There's so much damage going out all over the place, that this sunbeam ability is just one more thing you have to heal through. Don't stress too much about it - you can't avoid it or stop it. When you see damage from it, just heal it on up.

Mini-phase 1: "It's the big guy, find a mushroom!"
Freya starts this phase by saying, "Eonar, your servant requires aid!" and a big Keeper will spawn (looks similar to the three you just killed during trash). When you hear this, you want to do a few things: 1. Look for a mushroom and get under it (you'll get the Conservator's Grip debuff that will silence you if you're not under a shroom), 2. Start hotting up the person who's tanking the big guy, and 3. Watch out for the Nature's Fury debuff. If you get it, throw a couple hots on yourself and run away from everyone else! Keep an eye on any other people who get it, too, especially those who aren't healers, and throw a few hots on them as well. Even just one rejuv or LB will help immensely. If they've damaged people around them, and quick WG works well too.

Mini-phase 2: "AoE pile, group up"
Freya starts this phase by saying, "The swarm of the elements shall overtake you!" and a bunch of little flowers will spawn. They don't have an aggro table, so there isn't a single tank you should be healing. The raid will want to group up and AoE the pile down to about 50%, at which point everyone should *spread out*, and the DPS should single-target assist the offtank. If all goes well, they'll take them down one by one. When the flowers die, they do AoE damage, so be ready for a lot of raid healing. I've found that rejuving the raid when the flowers are at 50% really helps. Once the damage really starts to go out, I use WG and Nourish to top off the raid.

Mini-phase 3: "Trio!"
Freya starts this phase by saying, "Children, assist me!" and three different mobs spawn: Snaplasher, Storm Lasher, and the Ancient Water Spirit. All three need to die within 12 seconds of each other, or else they'll rez. One tank will take Snaplasher, and another will take Storm Lasher and the Water Spirit. Every time anyone hits the Snaplasher, he gets a stackable buff that increases his damage by 10%. If this buff stacks too high, it is positively lethal to the tank on Snaplasher. Make sure you've got a healthy stack of hots rolling on that tank to ensure he stays alive. After the buff reaches about 30 stacks, ALL dps should stop hitting Snaplasher and move to another target. Once THAT target is low, they should move to the next target. Once all three targets are around 15%, the raid should be able to bring them together and AoE them down all at once.

Remember, each of these phases happen twice, and they can happen in any order, so be ready for any of them at any time! I *don't* think, however, that any given phase will happen twice in a row. So if you have a trio, you know it's gonna be either the mushroom guy or the AoE flowers next.

So what's phase two? After all the chaos of these mini-phases in phase one, phase two is pretty simple. Burn down Freya - she's got no more healing stacks on her. Woo! And pretty much just heal the tank. Easy! But she does this thing where she'll spawn little seeds right below your feet (they're called Nature Bombs). After 10 seconds, if you're near one, it will explode, doing a ton of damage and knocking you back. You want to avoid these! You want EVERYONE to avoid these! But if everyone is spread out doing their thing, then all the seeds will be spread out too, and it's pretty much impossible to dodge them.

So, as soon as the last mini-phase is over, all ranged dps and healers will want to group up on a designated person (it helps to lucky charm them). If you're all clumped up, then the seeds that spawn will be all clumped up, and you can all move over about 15 yards and eeeveryone can avoid them. The seeds will explode, no one will take damage, and then when the seeds spawn again, you just move over to your original spot and avoid them again. Flawless!

What healing do I do in phase 2? Hots on the tank, and be ready for a rejuv + swiftmend or a quick Nourish on anyone who straggles behind and gets hit by a Nature Bomb.

LOOT!

[The Lifebinder]
[Leggings of the Lifetender]
The token for [Conqueror's Nightsong Leggings]

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A Resto Druid's Guide: Thorim

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"INTERLOPERS! blah blah blah WAIT. I REMEMBER YOU." Yeah, duh you remember us, we were just here last week. Also, get a smarter Jormungar. I really want to see it clever up one of these days and go after the healer first, instead of the ranged dps there. And then run rampant through the stands. And tear up Thorim! I kind of imagine him akin to killer whale in Free Willy. Go, Jormungar, go! You *get* those bad people holding you captive here for their own entertainment! /cheer

Thorim starts out fairly easy. You run into the arena and kill the entourage in there - no need to prehot any tanks much; there's really not much damage that goes out. Once these are killed, your group splits up - some stay in the arena, and some go through the gauntlet. The gaunlet runs around the back of the arena and will eventually come out where you see Thorim standing now. The raiders in the gauntlet will jump down into the arena, and phase two will start. As a resto druid, you will almost always stay in the arena. I've heard some people say that resto druids are best in the gauntlet, because they can heal on the run, but I don't think that's where they're best suited. For example, on Matticus' guide, it says: "For healers you want someone who can snap big heals, or heals on the move. We found that druids and holy paladins work incredibly well for the ramp group. Large effective heals and lots of mobility." Matt is totally on the ball with holy pallies - their beacon of light and big heals really do well in there - and restos ARE good in the gauntlet for mobility - it's just that I personally think he's underestimating just how crucial it is to have instant hots in the arena. More on that in a bit.

Arena: The majority of your raid should be in the arena - you might have to tweak this a bit until you get a good balance, so be prepared to change who is where and how many people are in each group. You should have at least two tanks (three is nice, however) in the arena that should have at least a rejuv on them at all times. Watch out for other DPS that might get aggro, though. The arena is a survival fight. As long as the gauntlet is still gauntleting, mobs will continue to come at you. You have to do everything you can to stay alive for as long as possible while waiting for the other half of your raid. This means conserving your mana but being quick to heal up your tanks and dps. If the DPS consistantly get aggro (especially clothies), there's not too much you can do except hope that you see the damage RIGHT away, and have a rejuv already on the target AND your Swiftmend on cooldown, because otherwise, they're going down. Shadowmeld FTW! Oh, you're a human warlock? Hm. Personally, I've taken to literally rejuving everyone in the arena simply because I use my Swiftmend CD almost every time it's up. You should also be rocking out the WG when necessary.

Thorim will sometimes randomly target a player and Stormhammer them (you'll see him sort of spin his weapon down into the raid), which puts the debuff Deafening Thunder on the player AND those nearby. This increases your casting times and your GCD by 75% - it's really, really rough on anyone who has cast time heals. As a tree in the arena, this is where you'll really shine. Sometimes you'll just have to power through it and wait out a 2.2 second Nourish cast on the tank - but mostly you should be using all hots. Be smart about those direct heals, though - don't wait out a 2.2 second Nourish if you have no hots on the tank to buff it, say.

Now, because Deafening Thunder affects the player who was Stormhammered AND those around him, it makes sense to spread out, right? To outrange the increased-cast-time debuff. Actually, not so much. If you spread out too much, you'll get hit by Lightning Shock from the pillars around the outside of the arena. To make sure you do NOT get hit by this, make sure you stay in the copper circle in the middle of the arena. Staying inside this circle will also ensure that the tank picks up any loose mobs near you right away. Think like bunching up on the bone pile on the undead side on Gothik the Harvester.

If you do choose to spread out and stand outside the circle, and take the shock from the pillars, make sure you run in a circle around the outside of the copper circle to out-range the shocks. Don't run into the raid in the middle, or back towards the pillar - just strafe a circle around the mid/outside of the arena and eventually it will stop shocking you. Throwing a hot on yourself while you move is advised.

The mobs that you'll encounter in the arena will do a variety of abilities, but as a resto druid, you just have to know about a few- the Commoners' Pummel, (locks you out of you spells, eep), and the Champions' Mortal Strike (reduces healing on the target - keep an eye out for this debuff on tanks) and Whirlwind (gah, woodchipper!). Keep everyone alive, including yourself, and wait for the gauntlet to arrive! Oh, and if you get a couple mobs on you, definitely hit Barkskin. Or this macro. Either one. ^^

The Gauntlet: If you have multiple trees in your raid, there's a *chance* that you'll be in the gauntlet (although I truly think that multiple trees, even up to 3 or 4 is pretty optimal for the arena. Imagine all those hots! /drool). The gauntlet is a long hallway of mobs, that includes two bosses. You'll have one tank and a few DPSers: a few CCers (mages, hunters, etc), and other classes that can interrupt (rogues, etc). If you're a really leet resto druid and no one screws up, you CAN solo heal the gauntlet (I have faith in all of you, gentle readers!), but it helps to have a hybrid dpser in there who can toss out a couple heals if the going gets rough. We typically use a holy paladin in the arena, along with an elemental shaman, but a boomkin or even a ret pally would probably work just fine as an offhealer. Note that you need a VERY aggressive tank to make this work - remember that your arena buddies are being slammed back there, and you want to get to Phase 2 asap. So keep up, but don't get ahead of your tank!

Look out for the fire that will run down the hallway on either the left or right side that the boss ahead of you will be putting down. It helps to designate someone to call sides out. Think Skadi with his dragon's frost breath - same mechanic. The first boss you'll encounter isn't too bad - keep the tank hotted up and don't stand in front of the boss, and you'll be fine. After that boss, you all will have to power up the stairs, sheeping (mages' job) and aggroing (tanks' job) the mobs as you go. You want to immediately engage the boss, hot up the tank, and hot up your DPS as well. Watch out for Stomp and be ready with a WG. Watch out for mobs that might be unsheeped and running straight for a clothie. Also be aware of the ability Rune Detonation - he'll put this debuff on someone and you have to get away from them within 4 seconds! Once you finally get that boss down, run up behind Thorim and jump down into the arena (watch out for the circlesoflethargyandallthatisslow on the ground - they turn you into molassos)! And then, once all is said and done, you get to go to phase 2!

Phase 2: Now Thorim's pissed. RAWR! Honestly though, once you've gotten the gauntlet done, and you have enough people alive, this phase is easy cake (/nom), as long as you know where not to stand. As he comes down into the arena, spread out! You want your healers and your dps to be spread evenly around the arena. The Chain Lightning he does can really hurt if it starts jumping around. Keep an eye on which tank is on Thorim and hot him up accordingly - they'll be switching every 15 seconds or so due to the Unbalancing Strike debuff Thorim will put on them. Also look out for sparks that Thorim will put down on the floor in a line from him to the wall for his Lightning Charge - you need to get away from them! If you stand in them (them, meaning the cone it will form - it'll form from Thorim to the wall), it can pretty much one shot you. Your best bet is to just run to the other side of the room. TL;DR: Watch where you stand, hot up the tanks, and be ready to heal up any DPS that get caught in a chain lightning with a Swiftmend or a quick Nourish.

Loot!

The token for [Conqueror's Nightsong Headpiece]
[Scale of Fates]

Happy hunting!

Want to know how Paladins are healing Thorim? Check out Tal's guide here!

Oh, also: Image Source. Thanks, MMO Champ!
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A Resto Druid's Guide: Hodir

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Hodir puts out a LOT of damage, and also requires quite a bit of situational awareness. It also requires a lot of thinking ahead on our part, because we need to make sure raiders are hotted up at the right times. Reacting *after* damage starts to pour in usually will result in wipes. >.< However! The very first thing you want to do is make sure Projected Textures is on.

1. Hit Esc.
2. Go to Video.
3. Go to Effects.
4. Make sure projected textures is ON (note that this image has it NOT checked off. That is bad).

If you don't do this, you won't be able to see the marks on the ground which indicate where icicles will fall. This option is NOT checked off by default, so you do have to go on in and turn it on.




Split up your healers evenly throughout the room. There will be one tank on Hodir, and make sure you prehot him before the pull goes live. Get into position, and keep your heals on the tank. At this point, you will have to get ready for a few different abilities:

1. Biting Cold. This is a similar mechanic to Keristrasza, the last boss in the Nexus. She's the blue dragon who yells in that annoying voice, "Preserve? Why? There's no TRUTH in it!" You can just *tell* she's a total diva. Ok, I'm getting off topic. The point is, she does that debuff where if you don't move, it'll stack up and eventually you'll be frozen. If you got up to 3 or 4 stacks, you could just move a bit and BAM the stack would fall off. Hodir is similar, but also different. If you have 3 or 4 stacks with Hodir, you have to move around for 3 or 4 seconds to get all the stacks off. Movement will only take away one stack per second. So make sure you keep moving! Hell, I *usually* run around like a chicken with my head cut off on any given fight anyway, so it's not like I really have to do anything differently. >.>

2. Icicles: If you have projected textures turned on, you'll notice small rune-type circles glowing on the ground. Don't stand in them! Move! These runey things mean that icicles are about to drop on your head, and that is baaaad. They do a lot of damage, and knock you back. Stop whatever you're casting, and move on out. These are usually what make me swear the most on this fight. I'll be starting to cast a Regrowth, and BAM, icicle runey thing underneath me. God, the words that come out of my mouth. It's a good thing I actually have to push a button for people to hear me on vent.

3. Bigger, more complicated icicles: When you see a *bigger* rune on the ground - it's probably about 3x bigger, maybe more - you want to run towards it. Stand around the edge of it, outside it - NOT on it. Wait for the icicles to drop. If you're in the rune when the icicles drop, they do a lot of damage, and knock you back even more than the other smaller icicle runes. Once these icicles drop, a circular snow drift will form.

Remember when you were a kid in elementary school, and the hallway had those multicolored tiles? And you played the Lava game with your buddies, where you can only step on the white tiles, because the brown ones were lava? And then your teacher was like, Stop goofing around! but you and your friends still tried to play the game really nonchalantly, like she wouldn't notice?

Ok. So the snowdrift is the white tile. Everything else is the brown tile. Except it's not lava this time, it's the ice cold ground, which will freeze you into an ice block if you're on it. At which point the DPS will have to switch over to YOU, rather than the boss, to break you out. This makes the DPS angry. It wastes their resources, and most likely you'll die before they can get you out *anyway*, because you'll have been staying still and Biting Cold will be stacking up, and their efforts will be in vain. Plus: it's totally preventable. You shouldn't EVER get frozen! Just hop up onto that snowdrift and you'll be a-ok. As soon as the floor returns to normal again (it will get all white and frozen when it's NOT safe, which will fade when it IS safe), you can run off it and resume your chicken-with-no-head running around again.

4. Frozen Blows: This is where healers really have to be on their toes. In an ideal world, you want to have as many people as possible rejuved before this goes off. He'll cast frozen blows about once a minute. This will deal a total of 40,000 damage to each raid member over 20 seconds. It also adds 40,000 frost damage per attack on the tank. Some of this will be resisted (hopefully you'll all have a frost resist aura), thank goodness, but it is still a LOT of damage.
If you're tank healing: Put all four hots on the tank, spam Nourish, get ready to Swiftmend, and pray to the healing gods. Watch your LB when it's about to bloom - if the tank isn't low on health, you'll want to refresh it. If the tank IS low, let it bloom and restack right away.
If you're raid healing: Make sure you've prehotted everyone you possibly can (you want to start prehotting a good 10+ seconds before Frozen blows) and then hit WG immediately as Frozen Blows start. Use Barkskin here, too, so you don't have to worry as much about yourself. Start Nourishing anyone who doesn't have a Rejuv on them (but make sure you're moving in between casts), and hit WG one more time when it's up.

Now, while ALL of this is going on, you also should keep an eye out for the NPCs who are running around trying to help you. "There are NPCS?!" Yuppers. Remember those ice blocks at the start of the fight? There were NPCs frozen in there. Your fellow DPSers will break them out at the beginning of the encounter. These NPCs give you some awesome buffs, too, if you keep your eyes out for them.

Toasty Fire: The mages, Sissy and Missy Flamecuffs (Alliance) or Amira and Veesha Blazeweaver (Horde), will put down a Toasty Fire, which does two things. One, it prevents Biting Cold, which means you can stand still and cast away. Two, it gives ranged players a Singed buff which increases magic damage done to Hodir. Only a handful of players can benefit from a Toasty Fire. If you're near one, and no one else is using it, then sure, stick around there with the buff. Otherwise, let other raiders have it - we're masters at healing on the run, and shouldn't necessarily need this buff.

Storm Cloud: The shaman, Elementalists Avuun and Mahfuun (Alliance) or Spiritwalkers Yona and Tara (Horde), will put a Storm Cloud on a friendly player. If you have the storm cloud buff, do your best to run into the melee! You want to give the buff to as many people as possible, and seeing as how melee will almost always be bunched up around the boss, and can all definitely benefit from it, it's your best bet to run over there. Besides, +135% crit?! Hot DAYUM. The melee will love you. However, if you see a group of ranged DPSers or paladin healers bunched up somewhere, there's a good bet too. Basically just try to get near a group of raiders as best you can. Note: Najtrok made mention in the comments section that this only buffs your crit DAMAGE. So paladin healers actually don't benefit from it, which is a shame. This also means that if any healers have the Storm Cloud, it's even more imperative to get near some DPSers - because the buff isn't doing *anyone* any good if just you has it.

Starlight: Yay, druid NPCs! Ellie Brightfeather and Ellie Nightfeather (Alliance) or Tor Greycload and Kar Greycloud (Horde), all boomkins, will put down starlight, which intuitively looks like a beam of light coming down from the sky. Stand in it to get a 100% haste buff. That's right - 100%. Keep in mind two things, though - remember that you still have to move! If you're in starlight, jump up and down. Also, keep an eye on your mana. With that much haste, it's easy to spam a 1 sec. Regrowth and then realize that you're completely oom.

Do I need frost resist gear for this?

No, I don't think so. If everyone in your 25 man guild is coming in with Naxx-10 gear, then maybe you'd want some just to survive a bit longer and see the fight more, for practice purposes. But if you're nerfing your other stats for the sake of frost resist, it'll be really hard to beat the 8 minute enrage timer.

Loot!!!

The token for [Conqueror's Nightsong Robe], and that's about it.

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A Resto Druid's Guide: Auriaya

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Cats pouncing around at the speed of light: Check.
Having your face get mauled off: Check.
Sara screaming her head off in the background, making you want to slap her silly: Check.
Really, really wanting to stop and /pat or /pet the kittens that are all around you, but not wanting to get yelled at by the raid leader:...... er......check. *cough*

On this fight, the pull is most important. If you get it wrong, it's *very* difficult to recover from. You should have two tanks, one to get Auriaya, and one to get the cats. You should be standing out of line of sight along with the rest of the raid around a nearby corner.

LIKE SO!


Just....ignore Hodir over there. He's just hanging out. That's where Auriaya usually pats, by the way. But uh, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain (I went into Ulduar after our raid by myself to get these screenies, so, uh, Auriaya is actually dead at this point - as is Hodir, obviously ^^).

Where I'm standing - the red circle - that's where the entire raid should be. See the GREEN circle? Some raids hide behind there. We've found that the cats can pounce on raiders THROUGH that thing. So it doesn't work reliably as an out-of-LOS barrier. I'm assuming that *usually* it works, because a lot of different strats put raids there - but in two of our pulls, the cats were able to 'see through' the bannister there and pounce us, when literally, there was no one IN line of sight. Hence we moved over to a more solid wall on the right.

Why do we LoS pull like this?

The four cats do this crazy pounce thing that deals a TON of damage to people - but they can ONLY pounce you IF: 1. You're less than 25 yards away, or 2. You're more than 8 yards away. The line-of-sight pull ensures that when the cats finally get to the raid, they're all like awwww shiiii- cause the raid is too close (closer than 8 yards) for them to do their pounce ability. Sweet!

Three tanks will be needed on this pull - one to pick up the big chick, and the other to pick up the cats in pairs. It *really* helps to have misdirects, because you're going to want to prehot all tanks. Like, LOTS of prehots. Regrowth, Rejuv, 2-3 LBs. On both. If you don't prehot tanks, their chance of dying in like 4 seconds skyrockets. Because once you get the pull right, you all have to move back to HERE:



....and because you're all moving and trying to get into position, note that no big heals can get out to the tanks. No one can heal on the run like druids can - however, most of our insta-heals are all slow heal-over-times. Therefore: prehots! Very necessary.

After this initial pull, the tanks will move on over the middle of that area there, as shown in the second screenshot. At this point, you want to group up real close with all the other ranged DPS and keep your hots on the tanks (or your assigned tank). The tanks with the cats will be pretty far apart - if you get the cats too close, they all get a buff that does way more damage. Note that they all have this buff already when you pull - so it's another reason why the pull is so vital (if you mess it up, their stacked damage from the pounce will kill you), and why it's important to spread them out so as quick as possible.

Once you're in position, a few things will happen.

1. The four cats will die (if the DPSers are doing their job).
2. Auriaya will sometimes cast a fear on the raid that'll last about 5 seconds. This has a two second cast, so it's helpful to have Auriaya as your focus to see this. When the cast is coming, you can refresh a few hots on the tanks if needed before everyone gets feared.
3. Auriaya will sometimes summon a feral defender. This is another cat that will need to be picked up by a tank. The defender does a few things:

• Pounces random people in the raid and locks out your spell casting for SIX SECONDS. This is probably THE most frustrating part of the fight. If a few of your healers get locked out, you can almost guarantee a wipe. There's not too much you can do about this, but hopefully the tank and/or dps can keep it stunned as often as possible.
• When the defender dies, it leaves behind a huge void zone. It's black, and smelly. At least, I assume it's smelly. Also, it's bad: if you stand in it, you get ticked for 6k+. Ow. Don't stand in the black smelly stuff.
• The defender can also revive itself (cause it has nine lives! Like, actually, it does - it can revive itself exactly nine times. I don't know about you guys, but I think that's freaking cool.)

4. Auriaya will sometimes summon swarming guardians - these are tiny little kittens that will nibble on your ankles. They're a mild annoyance, and OH SO CUTE, and can be AoEed down pretty quickly.

So what should restos do?

Overall, you should focus on keeping hots on your tanks. There's a lot of spike damage that goes out, and you really need to make sure you've got that buffer on them if a couple huge pounces hit them. There's a lot of damage going out (so therefore, you're healing a lot), and consequently, I don't actually roll Lifeblooms on both tanks - it just costs too much mana for me right now. I usually put 2 or 3 on each tank, let them bloom, and then stack em up again.

As for raid healing, you're going to want to keep Nourish and Wild Growth on hand. Ticking LBs or rejuvs throughout the raid can help as well, if you've got the mana. You also want to use Swiftmend a lot on this fight - whether it's to save a DPS or save the tank, it can be extraordinarily helpful. When you see a DPSer go from 100% health to 30% health in one hit, swiftmend is way to go.

LOOT!

[Unwavering Stare]

Although the tier 8.5 helm is practically the exact same thing - so, if you're gunnin' for a 4 piece tier 8.5 set and want the best possible combo of gear - I'd say get the 8.5 helm, and if you're gonna pass on one of the five 8.5 items, pass on the gloves.

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A Resto Druid's Guide: The Iron Council

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The Iron Council: you've got the Steelbreaker, who's sitting there all fat, lazy, and content on his big blue rune. Then you've got Runemaster Molgeim, who's waving his arm like "Hey! Pay attention to me! Call on me! Me! Look! I'm special! See? Look! Looooook!" And Steelbreaker is all like "/yawn". And Stormcaller Brundir is like "I may be small, but I am formidable in my own right! I shall scamper around and look important, and maybe Steely will give me some recognition! Steely! Hey! Look over here! /scamperscamper" And Steely is all just like "/yawn". The poor guys, I feel kinda bad for them. Then Steelbreaker fusion punched my tank in the face and they all laughed at us, and then I didn't feel that bad anymore. "Decipher THIS"??? I'll decipher your MOM! What now! Screw you guys! No one fusion punches my tank and gets away with it!!! /RAWR

So, as stated, there are three bosses in this encounter, and as such, you'll need three tanks. There's Steelbreaker (the huge guy in the middle), Runemaster Molgeim (the middle-sized guy on the left), and Stormcaller Brundir (the smallest guy running around).

They also do different things depending on who you kill last, but for this guide, we'll focus on the most typical order: Steelbreaker --> Molgeim --> Brundir. Because if you try to kill Steelbreaker last, he does this thing where each time someone dies, he heals for 15% and does 25% more damage (I read that and went: o.O) So we'll focus on the standard order for now.

Eh. Reading this over, this really ain't much of a resto druid guide, because to be honest, it's pretty much "roll heals on your assigned tank, off heal the other tanks, raid heal." Pretty basic. But if you wanna keep reading anyway, go for it!

Each tank will be in one area of the room, and you'll be assigned to one or more of them. Try to stand near the middle of the room, so you can reach most of the tanks with your hots.

Steelbreaker's tank will take the most damage, and then get blasted with a Fusion Punch that HAS to be dispelled, usually by a paladin or priest. Because druids can't dispel magic, you don't need to worry about the responsibility of cleansing it off. Just keep your heals rolling. Steelbreaker also has an aura that will do raid-wide tick damage, so I try to keep one LB rolling on as many people as possible. As Lissanna pointed out, LBs are pretty cheap if you let them bloom, so you'll probably be able to do this just fine.

Brundir's tank will have to watch out for two things: 1. an AoE Overload ability that blasts people in melee range, and also a chain lightning that someone (usually a rogue) will interrupt. This tank can eat the overload, and doesn't take too much damage otherwise, so if you're healing him, feel free to heal the raid or other tanks as well.

The dps and tanks on both these guys will be doing a little rune dance (keeping the boss out of runes that will increase its damage, while trying to stand in those same runes which will increase their own damage - Molgeim puts these down), but this doesn't affect you, so don't stress.

However, once Steelbreaker dies, Molgeim gets pissed and starts throwing down these huge green runes of death. If he puts one down near you, you need to GTFO as quickly as possible. This isn't just a "oh I'll sidestep a couple feet and be ok" kind of gtfo, this is a AMIGODRUNRUNRUN type of gtfo. If your little tree legs don't book it, you'll probably die. The rune is HUGE. More huge than you'd expect anyway, the first time you see it. It does a lot of damage. It hurts. I think Blizzard nerfed it a wee bit but it's still huge. Did I mention that it's huge?

You've been warned.

The problem with the huge runes of death is that because they are so freaking huge, it's easy to run out of range of your tank. THIS BE BAD because when other healers are running away just like you are, they can't cast many heals. BUT YOU CAN! So you want to run out of it but you want to do it intelligently. It's hard to run away intelligently when hesitating to think for a mere split second will kill you, so try to be intelligent *before* the huge rune forms. Get a good position, note the position of the tank and dps in relation to you, and figure out where you'll run if said huge rune of death forms below you. I've said huge TEN times now. *Excellent.* Resto druids everywhere will now be prepared for the hugeness that is Molgeim's green rune of death. Yesssss!

Molgeim also does this lightning bolt thing every so often that'll blast random people for about 7k. If someone gets hit by two of these they can easily die, so get ready with your Nourishes.

Once Molgy's down, you just have the little guy to worry about. Keep range - don't stand close. He'll keep doing his overload ability, and also eventually do this tendril of light thing that'll float around and target random people. RUN AWAY! And heal while you're doing it!

Then, win loot!

[Unblinking Eye]
[Rapture]
[Phaelia's Vestments of the Sprouting Seed]

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A Resto Druid's Guide: Ignis

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Dear Ignis:

You make me hesitant to shift into tree form. Please don't use me as your kindling. Also, enjoy this anime chick. She has the same name as you.

Love,
Averna

Ignis is tanked in the center of the room, with the pools of water flanking his sides. You'll have one main tank on him, and two off-tanks by the water to pick up the adds that come to life. Once Ignis is pulled, you should be standing near the middle of the room, pre-hotting the main tank a little bit. The tanks, both main and off, take quite a bit of damage, so stay on your toes when it comes to healing your assigned tank.

Every so often, Ignis will grab someone and put him or her into the Slag Pot attached to his belly. This person takes 5k damage *per second* for 10 seconds. Ow. If you run Grid, you'll want to add "Slag Pot" as a debuff so it comes up on your unit frames RIGHT as someone gets thrown in. This helps because you want to start hotting them up as soon as possible. Deadly Boss Mobs should also let you know who's in there. In addition to all this, you could also have the person call out their name on vent, or designate one person to call out who's in the pot. If you yourself are in the pot, remember that you can heal yourself, so start throwing those hots on. Also, have fun getting the Hot Pocket achievement. ^^ For specific slag pot healing (and why druids are great for it!), check out Lissanna's blog post here.

Ignis will also cast something called Flame Jets. This is a 2.7 second cast, at which point DBM will send out a *huge* warning that says "OH SHI- STOP CASTING NOW" or something like that. (Well, without the swearing, but with just as much vigor). If you are casting something once his cast time is up, you get silenced for 8 seconds. EIGHT seconds. That's like, FOREVER. *Scary.* So. If a couple of healers or more get silenced, look forward to a wipe. Lucky for us druids, we don't really need to stop casting. Well, we kind of do. But instant casts are 100% fine. They won't trigger the 8 second silence. So don't cast Regrowth or Nourish - but LBs, rejuvs, swiftmend are all ok. This is great, because you can be casting hots on people before, during, and after his Flame jets cast without worry of a silence. It's especially important to keep those instacasts going, because other healers with cast times won't be able to do much during these few seconds. You want to provide enough of a buffer that they won't be desperately blowing cooldowns left and right once they land.

I would recommend saving your Wild Growth for right after Flame Jets is cast - the jets will bounce most people up into the air (interestingly, you *can* resist this. I've done it a few times. It's a little odd - everyone goes flying up around you, yet you stay on the ground. Check out the WWS. While you're at it, check out that 9k Nourish crit. BAM! So what if it was all overheal - It procced living seed! BOOYAH). When you're up in the air (or on the ground resisting), cast WG on yourself, and it'll get everyone around you. Flame Jets hit people for around 9k damage, AND give everyone a ticking dot on top of that, so in this case, WG is your best heal to use. It's mostly damage control after that - some LBs, quick Nourishes, another WG, etc.

Tips: 1. Make sure your offtanks don't go out of range of you - keep the communication open. They'll do a little moving around to get the adds into the fire, and then into the water. Position yourself in a good spot, and then shift with them a bit if you need to.
2. Make sure your heals on the tanks are strong and consistant. Raid healing is important, but if you let your attention shift too much, you can have yourself a dead tank. Tank damage is consistant and heavy.
3. Set Ignis as your focus before each fight. This way you can see exactly when he casts Flame Jets. You'll see the 2.7 sec cast bar- and if you need to get a quick Nourish in before it hits, it'll help you judge whether or not you have the time.

LOOT:

[Flamewrought Cinch]
[Intensity]

*Note that Ignis isn't a hot anime chick. But when I searched for Ignis on google, she's what I got, and she's hot, and Ignis isn't, really (except he is, cause of all the fire and stuff, but you know what I mean), and I just decided to mix it up a bit. ^^

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A Resto Druid's Guide: Kologarn

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To get to Kologarn, you port through into the Antechamber of Ulduar after XT-002, walk up the stairs in front of you, and BAM, he pops up like a whack-a-mole. He looks like a cross between a water color painting of some Titan god and comic book version of Gandalf*. He's got two arms, one of which the raid will sometimes "kill", but then it will respawn a bit later.
...so he's like one of those strange starfish that will regenerate legs. Or those lizards. That regenerate their tails. Hm.


Two or three tanks will be front and center, tanking Kologarn where he stands. Kolo puts out a stacking debuff on the tanks that reduces their armor, so they'll be doing a rotation, each taunting when the one before has 2 stacks on them. You should be keeping an eye on which tank has aggro and healing them, while also prehotting the tank who will be taunting next once it gets close to their turn. There will also be an off tank who will pick up adds as they spawn, so make sure you know who that is and keep an eye out for those adds. Killing the right arm will spawn them. These adds will cast Stone Nova which does about 8k damage to anyone within 10 yards. Therefore, no one wants to be near them except for the tank.

So where does everyone else stand? Well, you should all be in a horizontal line facing Kologarn, with healers in the middle of this line (you want to be in range of everyone). This is because he does a eye laser thing that will target one person. If he targets you with his eye lasers, you have to run back towards the gate where you came in, and strafe one way or the other. This way, the laser won't hit anyone else; it will hit the ground behind the line of people. It only lasts for a few seconds, and once it's over you can run back into your spot.

EDIT: A couple great things that help: Face the wall behind you. That's right - face yourself AND your camera towards the back of the room. You won't be able to see the tank, but let's be honest, you never see the tank anyway. You're too busy looking at Grid or Healbot or Xperl or whatever you use. (AMIRITE?! I mean, srsly, Kologarn could be the Kool-Aid man for all I know. I have no idea. I'm too busy watching small boxes and health bars =P) This way you can see the eyebeams to the left and the right of you when they start up, and you can start running WAY before they hit you. It's *awesome*. Seriously, you'll never take damage from them again. The eyebeams take about a second or two to actually meet in the middle (the middle being where you're standing). You'll see them way before they meet, and you can start to run with plenty of time. Note that this totally doesn't work for DPS, for obvious reasons.

Because of this, you CAN'T wait for DBM to tell you that the eyebeams are on you. If you wait that long, you're too late, and they're already damaging you. Keep that in mind, and use visual cues, not just DBM.

Every so often he'll grab a couple players and Stone Grip them in his right hand. DPS have to switch to the right hand and damage it, to the point where he drops them. They'll be taking quite a bit of damage in there, so be sure you know who's been stone-gripped and hot them up.

Kolo's left arm will sometimes do an AoE "shockwave" that will bring everyone in the raid to under half health or so. Yes, it's a bit scary. When this happens, it helps to pop Barkskin and then remember not to panic - just hot everyone up as best you can, throw some Nourishes on them and get everyone back up to full health. Remember to keep your hots on the tank while you focus on the raid, as well. Also remember that you have 5 or 6 other healers that are helping you do the same thing. It will help to give priests assigned groups to use Prayer of Healing during this phase. If you have the mana to do so, I'd keep one LB ticking on a few different people who might have low health in general during the entire encounter, to help get them back up to full as soon as possible once that shockwave hits.

Once you have these mechanics down, it's pretty much just heal heal heal.

*Interestingly, he does yell "None shall pass!" when you aggro him. ^^

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A Resto Druid's Guide: XT-002

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Hai XT! Aren't you just a little bundle of cute! Doin' your calisthenics, makin' sure you're all ready for playtime. And your cute little hands! They're held on by MAGNETIC FIELDS. Well that's just neat! I know, all you want to do is play. You just want to have fun with some toys! Hey, that's cool. I want to play too! Wait. Wait, what are you doing? Oh - oh god, what - let go of that! No! What do you mean, you guess it doesn't bend that way?! Oh god no - AAAHHHH

XT-002 is a doozy. This isn't because of his abilities, really. It's because of his trash. When you walk into the room, you'll see two groups of adds: one on the left, and one on the right. Two seperate pulls. This is NOT a typical pull. Sooo far from it. It's been said that this is the 'pug test' to get into the main part of Ulduar: As in, if you're a pug, you'll fail the test. I'm not saying that it's *impossible* for pugs. I'm just saying that if you go in with the 'Naxx mindset' of "ok, lots of trash, put a tank or two on em all, AoE them down", you will fail.

Remember how we were complaining (well, I was, anyway) about Naxx, saying there were so few situations that needed good old fashioned coordinated crowd control? My dear gentle complainers: Prepare to immerse yourself in a glorious orgy of CC. Roots! Pet pulls! Frost nova! CC 'em all!

The strat we used was this: 1. Use a hunter pet to pull one group ALL the way back to Flame Leviathan's room (we probably didn't need to go so far away, but we wanted to be safe than sorry =P) 2. Wait out of line of sight there for the pet to get back, with the mobs. This is under the assumption that the little gnome guys run faster than the actual bots. Therefore, since they have to run so far, we'll be able to take care of the gnomes first, and then clean up the bots once they come. 3. Actually, there's a little glitch where the bots come first. So, root the compactobot that jumps and pounces on people , 4. Kill the rest, heal the tanks, etc. 5. Run up towards XT's room, and come across the little glitched gnomes that are just sitting there casting their little bubbles. Heal tanks, etc. 6. Rinse and repeat with the second group.

That glitch will probably be fixed in a later patch or something. I don't think it's suppose to happen like that. It does make it a lot easier to deal with the mobs, though, so enjoy it while it lasts. =)

So now all the trash is dead, and it's time to take down the big guy himself. When you pull, make sure everyone runs in together and is grouped up together. See the square tiles on the ground? You all should be stuffed into one of those squares. In the last ten man I did, Aeman put a lucky charm on my head and everyone grouped up around me, so it might help to mark someone like that. You should be in the middle of the room, with the boss up being tanked ahead near the stairs (melee can break away from the main group and DPS the boss).

Random people in the raid will get "bombed" with either a gravity bomb debuff or a light bomb debuff, and need to run out at least 20 yards either to the left or the right. Your light bomb will do tick damage to the anyone around you, so it's helpful to throw a WG on the group as you run away from them, just in case they get one tick. It's also *imperative* that you heal yourself while you run away. If you don't get any heals, the tick damage can kill you. Throw on a couple LBs and you should be just fine. I have definitely made the mistake of focusing on 1. running away, and 2. WGing the party I was running away from, and then all of a sudden Averna was like "gaahhh!" (you know that night elf death noise?) and it's all like "you have died." D'oh.

To anyone who raided in Tempest Keep back in TBC, this mechanic is very similar to Solarian's bomb (although you don't get thrown up into the air).

The other thing XT will do is a Tympanic Tantrum every minute or so. This deals damage equal to 10% of your health every second for 12 seconds. MASSIVE AoE damage. As soon as you see TT go live, throw out a WG around you. Then put a quick LB or rejuv on yourself and then go to work on the others, LBing or rejuving them. As soon as the WG CD is up, hit it again. You want to make sure you get at least two WGs in during this phase. If you see someone perilously close to death, throw a quick Nourish on them (or, if you eventually get the 4piece T8, throw a rejuv on them ^^). It really helps to start hotting people up BEFORE the tantrum, but I've found that the deadly boss mobs timer doesn't match up with when he actually tantrums.

Note that Tympanic Tantrum does NOT do a flat standard number of AoE damage - it's based on your health points. The damage taken is equal to 120% of your health. So you know how in Malygos' vortex, you had to especially make sure to hot up those with less health to keep them alive (priests, mages, or perhaps people who weren't as geared as others)? You wanted to make sure to hot up tanks, too, but you always knew they could take a bit more damage in the vortex than others. With Tympanic Tantrum, it's the other way around. Basically you have to heal everyone for just over 20% of their health for them to live. The tanks' 20% will be more than the priests' 20% - see what I mean? Just something to keep in mind.

Every 25%, he'll spawn adds from various corners of the room. Know who your off-tanks are, and be ready to heal them as they pick up the mobs.

Every once in a while, XT will get tired, sort of shut down, and his heart will drop down out of his body. The more you damage the heart, the more he will be retroactively damaged once he comes out of "rest time". However, if you KILL the heart, it will activate hard mode. He will automatically heal to full, his total health will be 45% greater, and his damage output will be 35% greater. Ouch.

If you're just coming out of Naxx and have a fairly middle-of-the-pack raid, there's really no chance you'll "accidently" kill the heart - you're gonna need some sick gear, sick dps, and maybe some heroism in the mix as well. SO: just go all out and try to get as much of it down as you can.THIS MEANS YOU, HEALERS! Seriously, isn't it exciting? You get to moonfire and wrath it up! Two things while you dps: 1. Watch the off tank (who probably still has adds on him) and heal when necessary - no need to shift back into tree, but a LB or two would help. 2. Watch your mana - make sure you don't bottom out on wraths and starfires and such.

Phat lewtz:
[Boots of Hasty Revival]


Next up: Ignis!

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A Resto Druid's Guide: Razorscale

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This encounter has three distinct phases: 1. The air phase, 2. The harpooned phase, and 3. The Oh shi-, she's free and moving around, get a tank on her, this is totally like that part in the new king kong movie with Jack Black where the monkey's on the stage and all chained up but then totally breaks free and JB and everyone in the theater is like oh shi-! phase.

The fight typically goes: Phase 1 -> phase 2 -> phase 1 -> phase 2 -> phase 3 -> dead -> loot -> win.

You start the encounter by speaking to one of the dwarf dudes, who then readies the harpoons and starts the encounter. Mole machines burst out of the ground, and adds start to rush the raid, while Razorscale flies ominously above you.

As a resto druid, what do you need to know?

Phase 1: First of all, spread out. If you have Deadly Boss Mobs installed, you can type /distance (or /range) to get a 10 yard radius going. It will tell you who is within 10 yards of you - if you see someone listed there, get away from them! The Wardens (a type of add) do a chain lightening effect that jumps from person to person, inflicting increasing damage each time.

Secondly, look where you're standing. Classic case of "don't stand in the fire." She'll put patches of fire on the ground after casting Devouring Flames. The fire will be blue. It is not a buff. It is not warm and cozy. It will kill you in approximately 2 seconds. Don't stand in it.

Thirdly, and most immediately concerning, are the Fireballs and Devouring Flames she'll throw at various people in the raid. She does this every couple seconds. If the same person gets hit twice with no heals, it's likely they're going to die. Devouring Flames does 9-10k damage and leaves that blue fire on the ground. Fireballs do 12k damage. Ouch. And I have definitely seen on more than one occassion people die because they got hit twice and healers weren't quick enough.

This means you have to be at the ready with your now new and improved go-to spell, Nourish! Regrowth can also work well, especially with the extra insurance of the hot behind it, but is a little bit more of a risk due to the lengthier cast time. You can do this a few different ways:

1. Cast Nourish as soon as you see a DPSer take damage. Yeah, it'll be mediocre with no hots, but at least you know you'll get a heal on them .
2. Cast Nourish, followed up by one LB. Therefore, if they get hit again in the next ~9 seconds, you have the hot on them for a ticking buffer, plus your second Nourish will heal for more. This involves using two global cooldowns and more mana.
3. Hot up random people and throw WG around. LB everyone you can. Nourish when you're able to and hope it'll be buffed by some of the hots out there. =P

I use a mixture of numbers one and two, with a couple regrowths in there as well. Number three would probably be my method of choice before 3.1, when I had a huge mana supply to burn. ^^ Not anymore - conserving mana is certainly something to consider.

During all this, you have adds running around left and right. Keep out of the way of Sentintels - they are the Wood-Chipper-Extreme of this instance. You don't want your bark whirlwinded into 1000 pieces.

So this whole time, while you're healing through Fireballs and not standing in fire, avoiding adds, etc, the dwarves are busy readying four different harpoon guns. One by one they'll become ready. Once they're ready, you can click on them in any order, at any time to activate them, and once the last one is activated, Razorscale is pulled down to the ground.

If your raid leader has you on clicking duty, she/he is a nubface. Focus on healing, not clicking.

Phase 2: Harpoons ahoy! Razorscale will come down facing the stairs, where you initially came in. The entire raid wants to be behind her, because she does a massive breath that will easily wipe the raid. Phase two is easy mode for trees. The only thing you have to watch out for is extra adds that might be hanging around and doing a bit of damage. To be honest, I dpsed during this phase. Moonfire, biotch! Take it! BAM!

After some time, she'll take a deep breath, get all agitated, and break loose, flying up into the air again. Back to Phase 1! You do phase 1 for a while, then phase 2 again, then maaaaybe phase 1 one more time if you're dps isn't super fabulous, and then phase 2, and THEN:

Phase 3: She breaks loose of her chains, but doesn't fly back up - she's pissed now. It's personal. She's going after you on the ground. The tank gets aggro and moves her so she's facing away from the raid. She'll put a stacking debuff on everyone that increases fire damage taken.

For trees, this becomes a typical tank and spank similar to Gluth. You'll have two people tanking her, each one taunting when the other has 2 or 3 stacks (they not only get the increased fire damage debuff, they also get a sunder armor debuff. The sunder armor debuff is why they switch on and off). The tanks take a LOT of damage (remember when you first did Patchwerk? And you were like holy shit this is a lot of tank damage? Yeah. It's like that.), so make sure you've got all your hots rolling on the tank with aggro.

Phase 4: Phat lewts!

[Bracers of the Broodmother]

Note: there are a couple achievements you can aim for on this fight, but there's no official hard mode that you can activate.

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A Resto Druid's Guide: Flame Leviathan

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The first part in the series Ulduar: A Resto Druid's Guide! =O

Flame Leviathan: the first boss in Ulduar. Note: he is a huge machine. And you fight him using machines! Machine vs. machine.... Rawr!

Writing this was a little odd, because there really is no "resto druid perspective," due to the vehicle mechanics. I'll try anyway!

There are three different types of vehicles: Siege Engines, Demolishers, and Choppers. This entire fight is vehicle based - you won't be using any of your normal abilities. Even if your vehicle bites the dust and you're just running around on your own, you can't heal the other vehicles - they are immune to heals. Probably because they're metal? You no can fuse steel with rejuv D: The only time you might be able to use your own ablities is if you're catapulted up onto the boss, but 1. You probably won't be up there (maybe, but most likely not), and 2. I'll talk about that later on.

Siege Engines: These have the most base health out of the three vehicles. Think of them as the tanks. They ram into things, and can also do a spell interrupt when Flame Leviathan channels Flame Jets. They can carry up to three people with them: one manning a turret gun, and two passengers.



Demolishers: These have a lot less base health. They can catapult players up onto Flame Leviathan. They also can dps from a distance. I like to think of these guys as clothie pew pewers - mages, or warlocks. They can carry up to two passengers, both of which have the option to use an ability which loads them into the catapult; however, only one should be using this option. Passengers can also shoot down ammo (Pyrite) from the sky, and then grab it with a hook once it's on the ground.


Choppers: Look like small motorcycles. Similar to the demos in health points. I picture them as melee with a twist. They don't do much damage on the boss, but they do get up in melee range to lay down tar that slows him down. The tar can also be ignited by demolishers to cause damage per second to the boss. The Tar ability has a decently long cooldown, so don't sit in melee range if you don't have to - FL does this 'flame jet' ability that will knock your socks off if you're too close to him. Choppers also pick up raiders that parachute down off of FL, and have the ability to heal them.


So: As a resto druid, what vehicle will YOU be in? Well, it depends a lot on where your raid leader wants to put you. Popular strats have resto druids in many different places. Kinky! Most likely you'll be a driver or passenger in a demolisher, or maybe manning a Chopper. In our most recent raid, I was on Chopper duty. Biker bitch gang FTW!

What about being catapulted? Weeeeeee! Well, you probably won't be catapulted - you can toss anywhere from 2 to 4 people up there, although I believe you can put even more up there (I've heard people putting up to 7, I think). The thing is, it's a balance - the more people up there, the faster the turrets die, and the faster he gets stunned. However, once he's stunned, you want as many people as possible in Demolishers wailing on him, because his damage taken is increased by 50% when stunned. If a lot of people are busy parachuting down, then not as many people are in demos DPSing. Secondly, I wouldn't think you'd want to toss more than 5, because there are 5 choppers, and choppers can only pick up one person at a time. Anyone who has to wait around for a chopper to come back for them has a high potential of a one shot death, *especially* if you're rocking out the hard mode.

Our raid leader put 1 healer and 3 ranged dps, however, I don't think the healer is really needed - the damage up there is really minimal. Besides, if they do take a bit of damage, the choppers have an ability to heal them to full once they're picked up after parachuting. Note: once the turrets are dead, just WAIT for the game to parachute you down. Don't jump off or anything. It will automatically disengage you.

Moral of the story? Be prepared for many different kinds of roles!

Here is a diagram I made regarding who does what and where during the actual boss fight:


But before you can even get to Flame Leviathan, you have to fight through his little army first. This is actually good, because it lets you try out your vehicle abilities. Now, if you talk to the Loremaster dude at the beginning, then it's during this stage that you determine just *how* hard you want hard-mode to be. Talking to him will activate the four towers, of which you can then destroy any number. I.e, having one tower up will be a lot easier than having two up, which will be a lot easier than having all four up. It's your choice =)

Now, keep in mind that I have yet to do hard mode (we're trying it in a 10 man this Thursday), so I can't report first-hand what it's like just yet. I'll update this once I get a feel for it. But here are the basics:

The four different towers give Flame Leviathan various buffs. What do these buffs do? Well, all of them straight-up increase the overall damage output of the encounter. They also each do something unique: The Tower of Life summons adds to play with the raid. The Tower of Flames ignites people, and leaves behind a trail of fire (omg don't stand in the fire!). The Tower of Frost ice traps nearby raiders, and the Tower of Storms does extra damage to raiders who are near the impact site of this hammer that FL starts to use.

Essentially, hard mode means you need faster DPS and better coordination. You can't heal any of the vehicles, which essentially means you will die fairly quickly if you don't 1. play skillfully (i.e, don't stand in the fire, interrupt Flame Jets, use tar wisely, etc), and 2. kill him asap.

Loot that drops for trees:
[Glowing Ring of Reclamation]

Look forward to the next installment of Ulduar: A Resto Druid's Guide! about Razorscale!

EDIT: Tar does NOT actually slow Flame Leviathan down. See this post here.

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