The Restless Resto

A second look at Shannox

2011-07-16T19:56:00.000-07:00

OK, so most people have downed Shanny already. Good for you, awesome job! For those of you who haven't, and you know who you are, I offer some simple tips.

Most everyone knows the "pro" raid strat of checking the dungeon journal, and then watching the tanks spot video on the boss, and repeating EVERY SINGLE THING that they say/do in the video. Tankspot is a great resource, but there guides tend to focus on 25-man raids, and we all know 10 mans can be different.

YOU CRY LIKE LITTLE BABY!

What we've all been told about shanny is to take down his doggys simultaneously, that way you don't get stuck with shanny zerking on your tank. But you see, rage face is a bastard, and if your dps and heals aren't on top of him, some one will die. We were having this issue, with rage face just devouring us in the chaos of traps and spears. So we tried a different approach, Burn his ass. by burning rageface you control the damage he would be spreading around your group by having your shannox tank take 30% more damage. Yea, that sounds like a lot, but is easy without Rageface running around.

After RF goes down, get shannox settled around 35% health before killing riplimb, so his uber zerk only last a few seconds while your dps switch targets. We have had great repeated success with this strategy, and i'm confident it can work in your ten man raid group.

PvP season 10 ohh-yea

2011-07-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

They gave us fucking horns!

We knew it was coming, and for a few weeks now the battle has raged across all of Azeroth. Now i'll admit that this is the first season i am taking seriously. Most pvp i did was av and such, but for the last few weeks things have changed.

Being a resto druid in 2v2 arenas can be intense, but very rewarding. First off, forget everything you know about raid healing. Your still using the same heals, but in very different ways. The pvp gear leaves your usual stats very low, the idea being to gain Resilience instead. The debate can rage forever, but i like to have 3k at a minimum to have a chance in arenas. Do know you'll be getting focused on ALL THE TIME if your opponents have a clue as to what they are doing, and the resil saves your furry ass more than anything else. Oh yea, your spec, going to have to change it, and pick up ability's you have sworn off. Pick your spec for what you think you'll use, but know the first time you miss a cyclone and get murdered because of it, your going to want to respec.

I've learned alot quick, and the info can be very overwhelming, so i'll just leave some quick pointers everyone should know.

This Spec Will make any raid healer cry, and rightfully so

Swiftmend/cyclone can stop more damage then sw/healing touch will give, use it or fail.
Never forget nature's grasp, it can piss many a melee dps off, and is one of our few ccs
using entangling roots and then line-of-sight'ing casters is very effective.
use Skull bash when a healing is hardcasting. this stops the cast and any heals for 4 seconds.
"Wait, i need to use feral abilities" Yessir, open with pounce, keep bash and skull bash handy if you want to truly dominate. using all of your utility's is the only way to prevail.
Cyclone can be cast 3 times on one target before they become immune, use it to shut down/interrupt healers, kinda all we got.
Immunity only lasts a minute or so, so keep using cyclone all through the fight
Don't get your four-piece bonus, get the 2 piece bonus from the boomkin gear for free resilience.
^That

Big sexy heals

More to come as i learn more, the last 2 weeks have been crazy busy raiding and working and having a social life. I'll get back on updates for everyone.

Firelands Druid Raid BIS

2011-07-01T03:30:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone is getting some quality time out in the firelands. New gear is awesome, but i must say i'm a little disappointed with what i've experianced so far. The open arena feel is kinda meh, and there aren't any signifigant new fight mechanics i've come across, but i didn't get to steer fatty around yet.

Any who, i present to you a list of BiS for us resto druids in firelands. this is gear from new bosses, new LW designs, or Valor gear. Do know this is a general bis, depending on what pieces your able to acquire you might sub different items to make haste break points. 1602 should be your minimum if you don't have anyone to give you haste buff, assuming your in a ten man like me this is a reality. if your blessed with the 5% haste buff from someone AND Dark intent from a warlock,you only need 1573 or so. 2005 is what you would like to be at in a ideal world, but until you get fully decked out in good gear it might be rough to hit this point.

Most of these are haste/spirit heavy to reflect my situation, every ones is different, restat accordingly. Don't be afraid to reforge spirit away if your comfortable with how much you have already.

It'll take a few weeks to be able to afford all the good Valor gear, just get gear to sub until then.

Head-Cowl of the Clicking Menace- dropped off Beth'tilac, haste, spirit, and a +30 int socket bonus makes this a great sub before you can nab a token off rag.

Shoulders- Flickering Shoulderpads- Drops of Shannox, hopefully you nab "of the undertow" which carry spirit and haste. other then that your going with less then ideal stats, but still your only option before tier.

Cape- Flowing Flamewrath Cape- This is easily obtained by reaching friendly with avengers of hyjal, at 250 gold it's worth grabbing,

Neck-Firemend pendant, Heartstone of Rhyolith Both of these are near identical, firemend will be easier to obtain as you can get it from the valor vendor.

Trinket- Jaws of Defeat*-Majordomo Staghelm, Eye of Blazing Power-AlysrazorFiery Quintessence-Valor Heroic Shard of Woe*-Sinestra
Ok lot of Trinkets to choose from these days. You want int. Period. SoW is still epic for it's mana reduction, snag it if you can.

Ring- Soothing Brimstone Circle-Valor Crystal Prison Band-Shannox Both these rings are good, don't be afraid to pick up stats your slacking with your rings.

Wrist- Glowing Wing Bracers-Baleroc Spirit/Haste kinda only have one choice, least it doesn't have crit?

Moo

Gloves -Cindersilk Gloves-Beth'tila Heavenly gloves of the moon-LW Tier Gloves-valor. From a Stat perspective, the boe's offer haste/spirit and a red slot, and would give you more int. But The Tier gloves provide you with some nice bonuses.

Feet- Ethereal Footfalls-LW Phoenix-Down Treads-Alysrazor depending on what your haste, the choice should be easy for you. if your luck is thin though, farming the AH is better then betting on the rng. Personally, i wouldn't pass up the phoenix-down treads just cause of the name.

Chest- Incendic Chestguard-Rhyolith Obsidian Arborweave Robes*-Valor Both of these offer damn near identical stats, and the tier piece should be a easy choice

Belt-Firescar Sash- only 378 for us so far, solid upgrade just less then ideal stats.

Legs- Tier pantys Clearly the best, if you happen upon the fire kitty ones before you have enough valor take em, but expect to buy the tier when you can.

Main Hand-

Kogun, Hammer of the Firelord*-Rag
Chelley's Sterilized Scapel-BoE
So drool over Kogun until your guild can take down rag. Until then Chelley's offers crit and mastery, so less then ideal but still a good upgrade. Running a Main hand/Off Hand will net you more int and stats overall then a staff. It is fairly harder to find a weapon for each hand, but it has it's rewards

2Hand- Smoldering Censer of Purity-Shannox So yea, staffs, a huge upgrade from any 359 setup, but not as good as a 378 mh/oh set up. Take it if you can get it

Offhand-Goblet of Anger-Shannox only choice thats 378 at the moment, hope you got shannox on farm.

I've recently started working again, so it'll be harder to find time to update, raid and work. I plan on doing a pre raid best in slot list highlighting gear you can get from the new dailys, but it might take a few

Need a light?

2011-06-29T03:11:00.000-07:00

Ok just a quick firelands update. seems like bugs have minimal so far, planning on hitting the raid tonight and will get to see how that goes.but some quick notes so far

You only need around 80/115 of the hyjal quests to do the new dailys, which saved me about 2 hours of mind numbing quests.
The new patterns and BoE's have starting hitting the auction house. don't get too excited unless you have 40k sitting around.
The new quests have a decent bit of lore too them, but you'll be too busy avoiding horde to notice. i feel for anyone on a pvp server. mind your aoes
Doing the first call to arms on the hero board will net you a free mid grade cape. handouts are always good, and i like the purple look of mine.
Zomg stop reading and go play, just know the quests and dailys will limit your first day to a hour or so if you try hard. stupid blizzard making us work.
oh and most of em are rather easy, even in resto spec, so ya know, thanks blizz

more to come as i unlock it! see you in the firelands

Firelands today!

2011-06-27T22:02:00.000-07:00

After a long wait, we finally get firelands today. Excited? you should be, also be excited for the multitude of bugs and hotfixes we'll be seeing, and don't forget to update all your add-ons cause they won't be working for a while.

So lets start with our goodies. I had previously mentioned our new armor look. that hasn't changed and we finally know for sure what our Tier bonus is
Restoration

Item - Druid T12 Restoration 2P Bonus - Your periodic healing from Lifebloom has a 40% chance to restore 1% of your base mana each time it heals a target.
Item - Druid T12 Restoration 4P Bonus - Your Swiftmend also heals an injured target within 8 yards for the same amount.

Pretty good stuff, it'll be interesting to see how it changes when we use healing touch, but it'll be awesome for aoe damage and such.

So now we know what bonus we're shooting for, whats the wonderful armor we must acquire you ask? well some of this goodness.

Chest- Obsidian Arborweave Robes: Spirit and haste? so nice of you to give us spirit on our chest this tier

Dome- Obsidian Arborweave Helm: spirit,mast,and a int socket bonus, oh yea it looks badass too.

Shoulders- Obsidian Arborweave Mantle: if your not drooling by this point you should be, bliz took care of us this tier.

Pantaloons- Obsidian Arborweave Legwraps: awesome fancy pants, mastery and more red sockets then you can dream of

Hands- Obsidian Arborweave Handwraps : eww crit strike, got a feeling most people will opt for different gloves, but still rather nice.

It's all got that fresh piney tier smell don't it. I can't wait to dig into firelands, not only do we have this armor to look forward to, the whole dang tier takes place in our house. Hyjal is a cool place, kinda like the motherland for druids, so get out there and rep the best healers ever.

P.S. sorry for the hiatus guys, got busy with RL and such, have a whole week of content in honor of firelands coming out, daily review and guide coming along with boss strat for us.

Resto Druid Pre-firelands BIS

2011-06-20T20:48:00.000-07:00

Let Me know what you guys think of the new look!

Ok, so i said it was pointless to do one of these, but i still found myself typing it out. This is best-in-slot list for heading into firelands. I'm linking the 359 gear, but go ahead and assume that the 372 heroic gear is better. At this point you should be sitting with plenty of spirit, and haste to hit all the extra ticks. With the new mastery reforging spirit or haste might be more beneficial, i'll update this to reflect that after the patch goes live, until then just save your Justice points and run BWD one more time if you are still missing gear.

Helms
Stormrider's Helm- BIS, esp when it completes your 4-piece bonus
Helm of the Blind Seer-Great sub until you are able to grab a head token

Necks
Valiona's Medallion- Offers haste and Mastery, use this if your comfortable with your spirit, if not use Wyrmbreakers Amulet.

Back
Drape of the Twins-Great stats, but all of the 359 capes are very good, the true BIS will depend on your other gear.

Shoulders
Stormrider's Mantle-Obviously awesome shoulders are obvious. haste,spirit, and a four piece bonus.

Chest
Scorched Wormling Vest- Considering our Tier chest doesn't have spirit, this is our bis, but use the tier chest if it is the difference between getting your 4-piece bonus or not.\

Wrists
Manacles of the sleeping beast- Only leather wrists with spirit, and they drop off the heal check that is chim

Belt
Lightning Lash
Easily obtained from The AH or a leather worker, Al'Akir has a drop chance on a "of the undertow" belt, it offers a slighlty better mix of stats but is much harder to obtain.

Relic
Relic of Eonar-Choose between which valor relic will fit your gear better, i like this one.

Trinkets & Rings
DC:Tsunami-Awesome for almost every healer, but they can be a little pricey, watch for that to change with the new patch
Fall of Mortality-Core of Ripeness I like any other trinket that has int and spirit on it, the automatic procs and used procs equal out the same, just depends on if you want to control the up time.
For rings grab whatever you can, they are a great spot to cut spirit if you have enough and pick up more haste & mastery. avoid hit and crit if possible.

Main Hand
Andoros, Fist of the Dragon King- Running MH/OH as opposed to staves currently nets us about 30 more int for a equal bit of secondary stats, only use staves if moving from 346.
Incineratus- Easily obtained from magmaw, great alt to andoros.

Off-Hand
Scepter of Ice- Looks cooler then heart bound tome, and alot cheaper then farming the AH

Shoes/Gloves/legs-obvious choices for these three, if you don't have them already get em
Fading Violet Sandals
Stormrider's handwraps
Stormrider's Legwraps

*Do note, this is a rough guide, always work with what you have to get the best output. This is a rough guide and should only serve as reference. All of the gear that costs valor ATM will cost JP next patch, so cap out.

Looking Good

Happy Furion day

2011-06-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

Taking a lazy day for the holiday, all druids should stop by hyjal and say thanks to malfurion stormrage!

man loves his sheep

Preparing for change

2011-06-18T19:49:00.000-07:00

Afro tree, he makes my eyes bleed

Oh change, us resto druids are used to it. Sometimes it's good, like buffing tanq in 4.1, and at other times, not so much (see picture). One thing is sure, our class and play style is always changing. We're still healers, still stack life blooms, but i have a itsy bitsy feeling that 4.2 will drasticlly change our stat priority, and heal rotation. Blizzard is making a huge effort to make our Mastery usefull with this patch, and all healers will be re-contemplating crit as a usefull stat, bliz is making our critical heals 200%, up from 150%. So Everyone throw there hands in the air like afro-hot over there and celebrate 200% crits, even you priests and pallys.

most mages when facing change.

Ok so healers are getting buffs, and us druid are getting the cherry on top with a new mastery. /Dance your ass off cause the next bit stings. All of our stat priority and BIS gear will be cluster fucked. Oh, we're you stoked about just getting your scepter o ice And how epicly-epic it is? and your BIS cape from the twins? Tough shit furry, until tree calcs come out your going to be flying solo, and god forbid, making your own decisions about gear and stat priority. "Oh shittith, i must make my own gear decisions" Yup, but it should be easy as cake for us, why? Leather, and spirit, no one, mofo'ing no one, uses spirit leather, cept for maybe that bastard critchicken who will try to need roll on your gear. Fuck him, those are YOUR your boots. If your GL doesn't share that sentiment, time for a new guild.

^ Just spent 12k on valor boots,
then was told they'll cost JP next week

Every new Tier brings the same anger. Your 359/372 gear will no longer be the hot shit come Tuesday. Raid leaders will quote Elitist jerks while inspecting you, not realizing no one has updated it yet. Hell some shammys will probably get smart and think there better then you. Screw em, we're resto druids, not only the most op class in the game, the most op spec of the most op class in the game (excluding mages). With any luck the new raids will be a hair easier then tier 11 was when it first it, not that it was all too hard for me or others. Should be safer then a nerf fight after we figure out the insta kill mechanics and healing assignments. Oh, and that whole how to play our class thing, that'll be fun figuring out, keeps the game fresh, just don't get comfy until all the hot fixen is done.

Lore, the mighty fro bearer from Tank spot has said 4.2 is slated for this Tuesday, bringing with it a quarter-ton of change, new content, and a whole fricking new Tier. Could be an additional week, but either way, it's a coming. If after 4.2 we get nerfed and actually have to try to heal, well, we're druids, I personally have thought of a aquatic form re-spec, but critchicken is there too for the healing impaired.

old TOL sees the change coming,
his face should tell us all we need to know.

Hey Mages

2011-06-17T19:53:00.001-07:00

Know Your Role

p.s.

20kdps or gtfo

New 4.2 notes

2011-06-17T19:16:00.000-07:00

Hot off the ptr and blizz's website is the new 4.2 changes.

Round of applause please. Thanks bliz!

So, the long awaited mastery change. Harmony is sounding pretty dang impressive to me, considering how many times we cast HT,nourish, and regrowth. oh whats that, still helps the hots? would not be surprised to see it nerfed a little. This is going to change a lot for us, or at least in spell priority and our rotation. Persona''y i can't wait to see how this works out for us. Lets not forget we're getting 200% critical healing in 4.2 also, i would not be surprised to see druids going through a major stat rebuild. mastery and crit, our two "worst" stats, are both getting a huge boost. I personally can't wait for firelands, rumor is this Tuesday we'll get to see it go live, to be followed by numerous hot fixes.

CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE!

Symbiosis (Mastery) has been removed and replaced with Harmony. Harmony increases direct healing by an additional 10%, and casting direct healing spells grants an additional 10% bonus to periodic healing for 10 seconds. Each point of mastery increases each bonus by an additional 1.25%. Healing Touch, Nourish, Swiftmend, and the initial heal from Regrowth are considered direct healing spells for the purposes of this Mastery. All other healing from druid spells is considered periodic.

Raid healing in 4.1, 10 man vs 25 man

2011-06-16T21:09:00.000-07:00

When people talk about raid healing as a resto druid on forums, those people are almost always playing the content in the role of raid healing 25 man content. In that role, stacking haste over mastery makes the most sense, while your dropping hots on your dps and healers, you want the most ticks as possible. Almost every guide says that is THE only way to heal in a raid, but i beg to differ.

With great success i have been running 10 man regular raids, with out stacking haste to the magical 1600/2200 mark, how? Tank healing and dividing up hast and mastery. Our "horrible" mastery is useless in the role of healing 25 people with one HoT, but in the role of healing a single tank (hopefully a pally) we can use the true potential of our mastery. lifeblooms, stacked with our other two HoTs, regrowth and and rejuv, offer maximum healing per tick. ideally you would stack haste to the 1600 mark, with buffs, and then focus on mastery. this gives us the most ticks off of our hots, and allows us to gain 25% or more healing from each with our mastery. This set up also allows us to cover our group with wildgrowth and rejuvs when needed, as long as the player makes sure to STACK his spells, casting them one at a time wastes your mastery.

I found that set up the key to defeating nef. In the fight i was assigned to the add tank, and being able to get 25% more healing effect while stacking my spells saved my ass. Having an exceptional tank didn't hurt either. From attempt to attempt, i found splitting my hast and mastery to offer more mana to help out the raid with, and still keep your tank up. oh, and 8 other good people helps alot too.

Druid Tier 12 armor Preview

2011-06-16T20:46:00.000-07:00

After patiently watching EVERY,SINGLE,CLASS, get there armor preview'd before us, we finally know what our tier set will look like in firelands. Personally, I'm digging the shoulders and wooden theme, the off-set charms really sell me on it, and i'll take it all day after staring at my sparkle feathers for the last few months.

armor bonus for four piece is still in development.

Welcome to the Restless-Resto!

2011-06-16T20:36:00.000-07:00

The Restless-Resto is a haven for resto-druids in World of Warcraft, Bringing you the newest patch notes and theory craft involving the best healers in blizzard's wonderful game. Look forward to firelands previews and raid theory.