That’s Buffy and Giles, yes I am a nerd, I know this. Anyway, she’s been keeping my hands very full, but I definitely plan to get back to writing here more soon!

Hope everyone has been enjoying all the new content in the patch. We managed to kill kalecgos last night, stressful but fun fight!

Gavel of Naaru Blessings
Badge Cost: 150

What you Gain : (+81 Healing)

• 545 Healing
• 10 MP5 O5SR
• 3 MP5 I5SR
• 420 Mana
• 420 Health

One Handed Weapons are hard to compare, because you can often make up for a main hand or off hand’s shortcomings with the other. This is also difficult because healing weapons beyond karazhan are hard to come by. The drops are rare and many guilds don’t stick around to farm Lady Vashj for healing maces, however Lightfathom Scepter being around the same item level is a good baseline.

Lightfathom Scepter

Comparison : (+18 Healing)

• -33 Healing
• +7 MP5 O5SR
• +9 MP5 I5SR
• -135 Mana
• -150 Health

Conclusions :
While at first glance this mace might not seem so appealing because of the massive amounts of Intellect and Stamina over other stats like healing, mp5 and spirit, it really is a nice weapon. It gets a small boost to mp5 due to the new intellect conversion and a little survivability never hurt anyone. A nice pick for those who never got their hands on Lightfathom or for any BT/Hyjal Druids looking to dump some of that new mp5 for more healing.

Anveena’s Touch
Badge Cost : 60

What you Gain :

• 66 Healing
• 18 MP5 O5SR
• 13 MP5 I5SR
• 285 Mana
• 270 Health

We’ll use another Lady Vashj item to compare.

Coral Band of the Revived

Comparison :

• +9 Healing
• +19 MP5 O5SR
• -2 MP5 I5SR
• -75 Mana
• -60 Health

Conclusions :
This is a very nice ring and they are another item that is hard to come by. It is on par with the Revered Hyjal Ring as well, almost identical. Again the Intellect gives it even more mp5 in addition to the 11 already on it. I definitely think its worth 60 badges.

All in all there are some really items to be picked up if you managed to save a ton of badges and if you didn’t with there being drops from 25 mans as well there will be plenty of ways to get them pretty quickly!

Lets begin!

Oakleaf-Spun Handguards
Badge Cost : 75

What you Gain : (+10 Spirit, +35 Heal)

• 119 Healing
• 61 MP5 O5SR
• 19 MP5 I5SR
• 450 Mana
• 280 Health

An item just below T6 in Item Level, we’ll use that for our comparison.

Thunderheart Gloves

Comparison : (+10 Spirit, +35 Heal)

• +6 Healing
• +1 MP5 O5SR
• +5 MP5 I5SR
• + 15 Mana
• +20 Health

Conclusions :
While T6 is the clear winner here its not by much and these gloves are a great pick up for anyone in anything below that.

Grovewalker’s Leggings
Badge Cost : 100

What you Gain : (Golden Spellthread, +10 Spirit, +22 Heal)

• 202 Healing
• 84 MP5 O5SR
• 26 MP5 I5SR
• 630 Mana
• 560 Health

We’ll do two comparisons here, T6 and the (current) Holy Grail of Healing pants for priests and druids Leggings of Eternity.

Leggings of Eternity

Comparison : (+10 Spirit x3 | 11 Heal/2mp5 x3, Golden Spellthread)

• -6 | +27 Healing
• -18 | -48 MP5 O5SR
• +5 | +1 MP5 I5SR
• -60 Mana
• +90 Health

Thunderheart Legguards

Comparison : (+10 Spirit, Golden Spellthread)

• -15 Healing
• -3 MP5 O5SR
• +6 MP5 I5SR
• -30 Mana
• -20 Health

Conclusions:
You really see the change to mana regen with this comparison. Leggings of Eternity, which on the current build are thought to be the best take a huge hit to regen when compared to the two items with more Spirit. The closer comparison is between T6 and Grovewalker’s and in my opinion Grovewalker’s is a very small upgrade to T6. So if you were debating whether these were worth 100 badges, I definitely think they are if you are in anything other than T6. If you are in T6 then you may not want to spend those 100 badges and that’s fine, they are incredibly close.

Shroud of Nature’s Harmony
Badge Cost: 100

What you Gain : (+22 Heal, +6 Stats | +15 Spirit | +6 MP5)

• 140 Healing
• 82 | 90 | 79 MP5 O5SR
• 25 | 27 | 28 MP5 I5SR
• 690 | 600 | 600 Mana
• 400 | 340 | 340 Health

We’ll do a triple comparison here with T6, Don Rodrigo’s Poncho and Shimmer-pelt Vest.

Shimmer-pelt Vest

Comparison : (+6 Stats | +15 Spirit | +6 MP5)

• -39 Healing
• -11 | -4 | -11 MP5 O5SR
• +5 | +5 | +5 MP5 I5SR
• -75 Mana
• 0 Health

Don Rodrigo’s Poncho

Comparison : (+6 stats | +15 Spirit | +6 MP5)

• -22 Healing
• +1 | +8 | +1 MP5 O5SR
• 0 | 0 | 0 MP5 I5SR
• -135 Mana
• +50 Health

Thunderheart Tunic

Comparison : (+6 Stats | +15 Spirit | +6 MP5, 11 Heal/5 int, 10 Spirit x2)

• -3 Healing
• +13 | +13 | +13 MP5 O3SR
• +9 | +10 | +9 I5SR
• -15 Mana
• +80 Health

Conclusions:
Its fun to see how the different enchants effect your MP5 in this comparison. All 3 seem to be good choices now with, in my opinion, +15 Spirit winning out in the all around regen category. ANYWAY Tier 6 still reigns supreme here, if anything because of those 3 sockets giving you lots of options. If you are in Shimmer-pelt or Don Rodrigo’s its an upgrade, but a 100 badge upgrade? I am not so sure. If you have to make a choice, I would definitely invest in the pants over this chest piece, while its very good, you won’t see a huge change to your numbers unless you are wearing something like Tier 4 or pvp gear.

I’ll try and continue this later in the week, looking at the other new items available compared to what you may currently have equipped. If you are wondering why I chose such high level items for the comparison, its because these new badge items really are that good. I definitely encourage you to download RestoCalc, even though its still not 100% (noticed an extra gem slot for Oak-leaf as I was writing this, oops!), to see the regen changes with your own stats, your own intellect and spirit values really will change the numbers quite a bit!

Happy Badge Farming!

General Enhancments

• Bartender3 : Nothing better than a good bar mod. I won’t get into the great debate of which is best because it’s purely preference. I like bartender because its simple, lightweight and easy to use.
  Available at WowAce.
• Cartographer : Anything you wish to see on your map, Cartographer will show you. Its also modular, meaning you only have to install the features you will use. For example my Druid is an engineer and I also fish, so I have the features enabled to show me previous locations I found some good fish or mote clouds. It can also show you were your guildies are on the world map if they also have it installed and have this feature enabled. There is not much Cartographer can’t show you, including previous quest givers and objectives.
  Available at WowAce.
• FuBar : Is your minimap starting to look more like a huge jumble of buttons instead of a simple map? FuBar is many things but mostly a bar you can place anywhere on your screen that shows you essential info, or allows access to mods or functions without going through your interface panel or menus.
  Available at WowAce.
• ItemRack : I really think I would go crazy without this mod. It allows you to set up multiple gear sets and switch them with the click of a button or macro. It also will show you a menu when you mouse over an item in your character screen of all the equippable items for that slot in your inventory, allowing you to switch items or weapons quickly.
  Available at WowInterace.
• Pitbull : Unit Frames! Pitbull is another modular addon, meaning you only need install the features you need and boy does this mod have lots of features. It can be a little overwhelming the amount of unit frames this package has and all the options for each one of them, but I love having that amount of control over what I see and how I see it.
  Available at WowAce.
• Talented : Great for those who respec on a regular basis. You create Talent Build Templates and can simply click ‘Apply Template’ when respeccing and it fills in all your Talents for you. No more “oops” moments during those expensive respecs.
  Available at WowAce.
• Quartz : Castbar and more! Not only is this mod a great cast bar, showing you or latency to begin your next cast. It also shows you a global cooldown timer (great for beginner trees) and HoT/DoT timers for your target, focus or yourself. Its another modular addon which means it has a ridiculous amount of features which you can enable and disable as you wish so you don’t have to worry about using up too much memory.
  Available at WowAce.
• FreeRefills : Automatically buys a set amount of the reagent you define whenever you visit a reagent vendor.
  Available at WowAce.
• EQCompare : Compare items easily with those you have equipped side by side.
  Available at WowAce.
• DrDamage : In game theorycrafting. Your spell tooltips will be adjusted to show tons more information including how your gear effects the selected spell: cast time, average damage, average crit, average healed etc. Available at WowAce.
• Ratings Buster : See what those ratings mean in actual percentages.
  Available at Curse.

Raiding

• WhisperFu : I include this because it broke on me after a patch once and I think I missed it more than almost any other mod. If you are a raid leader, or in a position where you get a lot of tells and have a hard time keeping track of them, this mod is invaluable. Its an add on for FuBar. It shows you the last person who sent you a tell on FuBar and if you mouse over their name it will show you the last 3-4 tells sent and received. Right-click and it shows you the last 10 people who have whispered you and the ability to see what they said.
  Available at WowAce.
• oRA : RA stands for Raid Assist. If your raid leader has this mod you can do them a favor by just leaving it running in the background. Especially if you have cooldown abilities your raid leader might want to know about: battle rez, ankh, etc. It gives the ability to show windows with this information as well as other good stuff to be aware of.
  Available at WowAce.
• XRaidStatus (XRS) : This is a great mod for everyone who raids. It allows you to create customizable bars with information you would like to see about the raid. How many are alive, dead, who’s in range, healer mana, overall raid health, overall raid mana. Almost anything you want defined by group or class or the whole raid. It also allows you to create a bar showing who has what buff and lets you buff those missing say Mark of the Wild directly from the window.
  Available at WowAce.
• Heal Organizer : Sick of typing out all those healing assignments, or having those macros to assign healers taking up all that space? I was too. Heal Organizer is a GUI to set up heal assignments and then broadcasts them to a channel of your choice. You can save profiles for any encounter and if someone was afk or not paying attention they can whisper you with the word “heal” and have their assignment sent back to them.
  Available at WowAce.

Healing

• Clique : To see more about Clique see my post about “How to be a Clicker“. Clique lets you bind spells to your mouse to be cast when your mouse is over any unit frame. While this is possible with macros, Clique gives you a nice simple GUI to set everything up and create profiles for different characters or situations.
  Available at WoWInterface.
• Grid : Grid put an end to the days when healers could not see anything beyond those they were healing since their whole screen was covered with unit frames. Small, lightweight and highly customizable its worth the bit of a high learning curve it takes to get it up and running.
  Available at WowAce.
• Chronometer : Timers for everything. I use it mostly for HoT and totem timers combined with Quartz.
  Available at WowAce.

Questing/Leveling

• Quest Helper : The beauty of this mod cannot be explained, it can only be experienced. It makes leveling a dream showing you the quickest and most efficient way to complete your quests and where to go to do so. Questing as a group? No problem, this mod will adjust to make sure all your friends get their quests done too.
  Available at Curse.

PvP

• Proxmio : The Ultimate Arena Addon. Shows you, your opponent class, health, mana, even their spec!
  Available at WowAce.
• Afflicted : Alerts you when important cooldowns of your enemies are up such as counterspell. Also alerts you if your interrupt or dispel/purge failed.
  Avalable at WoWInterface.

Class Specific

• Druid

  • Innervator : Alerts you when you should use your innervate to get the most out of it. Great for long boss fights.
    Available at WowAce.
  • Evocation2 : Automatically equips your highest spirit weapon combination when you have the innervate buff, then re-equips the previous weapon when it fades.
    Available at Curse.

• Priest

  • MendWatch : Tracks your prayer of mending, where its jumping and how many charges remain.
    Available at WowAce.

• Paladin

  • PallyPower : organize all those blessings on raids.
    Available at WowAce.

• Shaman

  • Since my shaman is fairly new I haven’t had the opporunity to experiment with shaman-specific addons. If anyone has any suggestions for me of things I should try out, please comment!

First, a new version of RestoCalc is up in the RestoCalc Section. Not much new except the Lifebloom coefficients have been adjusted to what they are on the current PTR. For those who would like to just know what those base numbers are, its approximately 52% for the tick and the new coefficient for the “bloom” is about 34%. I am having a hard time keeping up with SO many changes, but rest assured when patch 2.4 is looking more final, I will take some time, do some research and make sure everything in there is accurate. In the mean time, please continue to let me know of any typos or mistakes, or if any numbers are really off; bug reports can be sent to me at healerlfg@gmail.com.

Next, I managed to finish my guild’s new website. I am pretty proud of it, its over at http://www.pwnnip.com. I found some nice artwork I liked for the banner and at the insistence of one of my more stat happy guildies wrote a custom Loot Tracker. That whole thing is still under development but I am happy with how it came out so far.

I have another deadline for a site this week and a e-commerce site I am developing on top of that, so it hasn’t left me much time to play in Azeroth, let alone write about it

AND, yes there’s more! We are bringing a new puppy into our home in the next couple of weeks, but that’s definitely time I don’t mind spending outside of WoW.

I will try and keep the updates coming and hopefully things will calm down on my end soon!

While a nerf is never fun, the changes are now directed where they should be, pvp. Our pve ticks will remain as they are now.

In addition after years of begging from the Druid Community Regrowth has had its mana cost reduced by 20%. This spell, only used on non-mana intensive fights or for a direct heal in emergencies might now be useful to keep on rolling with Lifebloom and Rejuvenation in a lot more situations.

I am really happy about the above changes and to see that Blizzard was in fact listening to the Druid Community, despite that disheartening post on the Europe Forums.

I want to apologize again for my lack of activity. I have a ton of projects on my plate at the moment, including keeping up with the patch for RestoCalc and a new website and loot tracker for my guild.

Things should calm down a bit soon and I have a nice big list of notes I’ve made on things I would like to write about!

This version is for patch 2.4. So things like your mana regen and Lifebloom Tick and Bloom will not match the numbers seen on live realms.

I gave it its own section here where it can be downloaded and more information can be found, but here is a rundown of the changes made.

• New Mana Regen Formula Based on Intellect Added
• New Lifebloom Coeffcient adjusted + Emp Rejuv to “Bloom”
• Armor and Resilience Added for PvP
• Trinket’ed Value added for All Healing Spells
• HT, Swiftmend, Regrowth DH and Tranq added
• Haste added, as well as cast time for all Spells
• Innervate estimate + weapon swap/bangle of endless blessings option
• Old Items Updated, New Items Added
• Added Sheets for 3 sets of gear, Current, PvP and Wish List.
• Updated Nurting Instinct from str>agi
• Added Socket Options for Rings

Please keep in mind this is a beta. Which means there will most likely be bugs, I am hoping you all will help me by reporting them to healerlfg@gmail.com. You can also send feature and item requests to that email and I will update the To-Do and Wish Lists accordingly. However, my main goal right now is to get a functioning bug free version out there, then I will tackle the other stuff!

Enjoy and please send me any feedback!

What is A Mouseover Macro? It can be a very simple /cast macro. The only difference is your target is whatever unit frame your mouse pointer happens to be over at the time, this includes your target, target of target, focus target, or any unit frame in your raid, its limitless!

Helpful Spells

Basic Mouseover Macro:

/cast [target=mouseover,help] Lifebloom

Bind this to a mouse button of your choosing (Mouse Button 5 is my Lifebloom) and you are pretty much good to go!

Using the Same Key with a Modifier for Multiple Spells:

/cast [modifier:shift,target=mouseover,help][modifier:shift] Rejuvenation;[modifier:alt,target=mouseover,help][modifier:alt] Swiftmend;[target=mouseover,help][] Lifebloom

This is all bound to my Mouse Button 5 and does the following:
Mouse Button 5 : Lifebloom
Shift + Mouse Button 5 : Rejuvenation
Alt + Mouse Button 5 : Swiftmend

It will first cast on whatever unit frame my mouse pointer is over, if that doesn’t exist and I have a target selected it will cast on my target and if I have no friendly target or mouseover target, it will self cast if I have auto self cast turned on.

Harmful Spells

While less useful it does have its time and place.

Simple Macro:

/cast [target=mouseover,harm] Hammer of Justice

For the most part a key bind is quicker for offensive spells, but I’ve found these especially useful for my focus frame. It allows me to keep track of and possibly cast on two separate people quickly, my target and focus. A focus macro does the same but its just another option

Harmful and Helpful Combined

You can set up your macro so if you have a friendly player selected it will perform one action and an enemy selected another:

/cast [target=mouseover,help] [] Lesser Healing Wave; [target=mouseover,harm] Earth Shock

I have this bound to “Right Click” on my shaman. If I have my mouse over a friendly target it will cast Lesser Healing Wave, an enemy target Earth Shock, and no target or mouseover, self-cast Lesser Healing Wave.

This is Way too Complicated Give me an Addon

If the idea of setting up new complex macro’s for all your spells is a bit over whelming and you want to experiment with Click-Casting have no fear, there is a great mod you can download called “Clique” by Cladhaire. It gives you a nice simple GUI to set up all your click casting macros for you and doesn’t effect any macros or spells you may already have on your action bars, or take up any space in your macro section. I highly recommend it. While I have a few macro’s set up and learned how to set them up in case Clique ever disapears, the mod does all the work for you and leaves all that macro space free for other stuff.

Once you’ve installed Clique and enabled it, Log in and Open your Spell Book

You’ll see a brand new button on the bottom to open the Clique Interface as shown above.

You can select from 4 different “Click Sets” This allows you to use the same mouse key depending on the circumstance:

1. Default: These settings are a fall back when another action isn’t found
2. Harmful actions: To be used on hostile mobs or players
3. Helpful actions: To be used on allies
4. Out of Combat: Great for Buffs, or for retaining your “Right Click Menu” when not in combat

Take a look at my Helpful Actions section below:

To set a bind is incredibly easy. You just browse to that spell in your Spell Book and hit the mouse+key combination you wish to use to cast that spell.

You’ll Notice my Innervate is set to a Macro Function, to do this simply click on Custom and you’ll see the following screen:

The Macro Index is simply the name I have given the macro from my macro ui. You can enter that name or enter in the macro directly in the box labeled Macro Text.

There are tons of other things you can do, including selecting which specific unit frames you want certain “Clicks” to be active on. For example you want Right Click : Silence only to be active on your Focus Frame.

Click casting takes some time to get used to but in PVE it is extremely effective. In PvP as well, but you often want your mouse to be free for movement in pvp so its a bit more limited.

Happy Clicking!

If you haven’t I highly suggest you read my introductory “Anatomy of a Boss: Traditional Healing Roles“.

I will repeat that I assume you have a basic knowledge of the encounter before reading these guides, and are simply looking for a better or more efficient way to use your healers. This is what has worked for me and my raid, if you have something that works great for you, I definitely do not suggest you change it!

Suggested Gear Level:

This Guide assumes you are in Karazhan, Zul’Aman or other T4 equivalent gear and is directed towards beginners.

Suggested Healers:

I suggest a minimum of 7 healers for this encounter and a maximum of 9. My guild runs with 8 healers, so most of my assignments will be based around that number.

1 Priest
3 Shaman
3 Paladins
1 Resto Druid (HoT Spec)

This what we run with. Our third shaman is sometimes a second priest, a fourth paladin, or a second Druid. If you decide to bring extra healing, I suggest bringing more single target healing as tanks dying and bad phase switches tend to be the main culprits of learning wipes.

Assignments:

Main Tank(s): You should have two MTs for this encounter, one for Frost and one for Nature. I suggest dedicating two strong Paladins to these tank(s), along with your Resto Druid, keeping them Lifebloom’ed

Off Tanks: It varies between raids from anywhere from 2-4 tanks to take on the Spawns of Hydross. We normally have the MT from the opposite phase grab one and two other tanks grab the others and then pull that one off of the MT from the previous phase, and then AoE! Your third Paladin, Priest and Resto Druid should each be assigned to watching these guys. If you are having trouble, take one of your Shaman off of raid healing to help. You can also sub your Shaman for another Paladin or Priest if necessary for more single target healing.

Raid Healing: Your Shaman and Priest(s) shine here. Raid Healing is more intense in the frost phase, with Water Tombs. The DoT in the nature phase, Vial Sludge, while much less harsh, also requires some healing.

Class Specific Tips:

Paladins: You are well-suited to heal the MT(s) because of the aggro-drop between phases. So do not use righteous fury if specced to avoid damage! Your lower aggro heals are definitely your friend in this encounter. Always be sure to be on the appropriate “side” during phase-switches, and be careful about throwing big heals unless absolutely necessary during a phase switch. If it is necessary, be ready to bubble if he comes your way. As long as you are on the appropriate side for the switch, no harm should be done. As you are responsible for healing tanks, be aware the damage gets bigger and more spikey as each phase gets closer to a switch, do as much as you can to keep the tank topped, an unlucky resist and more than 50% of HP can be gone in 1 hit! Also, keep a special eye on the other healers and DPS during phase switches, if someone should pull a quick BoP can save them.

Druid(s): Hots are very valuable for this encounter because it allows a “buffer” for phase switches, when all the heals stop on one target and move to another it can lead to a wipe if you get unlucky or the switch isn’t quick enough, HoTs help prevent this. You should be keeping your LB up on the current MT, and healing any OT(s) you’ve been assigned to with HoTs and any direct heals necessary. As it gets close to a phase switch, start slowly stacking your HoTs on the tank for the next phase. Also start moving to the appropriate side and give yourself good distance in case your HoTs should pull during the switch. Be sure to have rejuvenation on the current tank in addition to your HoTs for the new one. He can drop low during a switch and a swiftmend can save the day. You may be thinking what I suggest is suicide haha, and yeah I’ve pulled and died, but the tank lived and we still killed the boss. I suggest being very careful in the beginning, seeing how quick your tanks are on the switches before popping trinkets and going nuts. For switches, I usually let my lifeblooms fade from the current tank as I stack only that on the new one, only leaving rejuvenation on the current tank for emergencies and I don’t pull.

Priest(s): Priests can be assigned to do pretty much anything for this encounter (most encounters) So I’ll just try and give the basics If you are specced pain suppression or CoH both are valuable tools for a nasty Water Tomb. PW:S can often save people here as well. As I’ve mentioned be careful of using any high aggro abilities such as CoH or PoH during a phase switch, always be on the appropriate side and be ready with the fade. If you are on the MT(s) then be wary of the spike damage that is possible, but since aggro is is touchy for this encounter its definitely not one where you want to pain suppression the tank. Keep a special eye on those folks with low HP (mages and probably yourself) during the Frost Phase. They may need special attention for water tombs and chain heal may not be quick enough!

Shaman: Frost Phase is the most demanding as far as raid healing goes and if your ranged is properly spread out melee should be your major concern. When possible you should direct your chain heals towards the OTs to lessen the burden on those healing them. Be extremely careful during Phase switches as chain heal is very high aggro. Do your very best to time it before/after a switch whenever possible. Also, NEVER use Searing Totem on this encounter. I’ve seen it happen to more than 2 guilds (mine included), where a Searing Totem pulls Hydross back across the Frost/Nature Line and its a wipe. Don’t be afraid to break out the Lesser Healing Wave for low HP ranged, priests should be helping you there.

Pitfalls and Common Mistakes:

• Underestimating the damage Hydross and his Spawns are capable of. This fight is very mana intensive and you should use consumables appropriately.
• Not Spreading out. Healers especially need to spread out from each other in the Frost Phase. If too many of you get Water Tombed at once bad things can happen.
• Late Water Tombs. Sometimes you can get unlucky and Hydross can do one last tomb as he crosses the line to switch phases. These people will need a heal or they will die, 100%.
• Being careless on Phase Switches. It is very often a healer when someone pulls between phases. Be sure you are on the right side.

That’s it! Hydross can be a bit daunting because of the resist gear and the damage output needed in an aggro sensitive situation but strong, organized healing can really turn things around. I hope you’ll let me know if this was helpful!