PvE Healing

Healing advice and suggestions for in game encounters.

Gearing Your Fresh 70 Feral Druid Tank

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Photo by thadz courtesy of sxc.

Matticus’ Note: This is a guest post from a friend of who has no blogging experience whatsoever but still did a great job nonetheless. This will be a great reference for me on my Druid. Thanks Masato!

After seeing the great responses to my first guest post, Matticus told me I should keep writing. So, to see whether it was a fluke or not, here is another.

Well, I’ve seen Matticus’ posts on pre-raid heal gear for Priests and Shamans, so I will do one of my own based on my experiences, but for the one of the other needed roles in any instance: the Tank. Feral tanks do very well in most situations, as they have incredible amounts of armor, tons of HP and dodge. They are seen as a somewhat easier type of tank to heal because they tend to take more consistent damage, rather than unpredictable spiky damage shield wearing tanks take. Druids may be a bit more of a mana sponge in this case, but it’s usually less stressful on the healer to keep heals running, rather than having to react to sudden spikes (this is more adamant on raid boss fights, but still mostly applicable in 5 mans).

Druid tanks are quite easy to gear up to have very decent stats without setting foot in a raid, and not even a single heroic. I’m building this list towards the PvE type person, but if you are the type that likes to PvP, most of those epics are slight upgrades to the ones I’ve listed. It takes a bit of farming, questing and rep grinding, but afterwards, you’ll end up being geared well enough to main tank at least the first half of Karazhan, and more likely than not, offtank the second half. There have probably been other posts with very similar lists, but I’ll write my own version here for you all. For the most part, bears want to look for Armor>Stamina>Agility. It is also important to have 415 defense skill (or 2.6% crit reduction BEFORE talents) so that you cannot be crit by level 73 bosses.

I will also discuss a proper feral spec later on in the article.

Working from the top to the bottom:

Head:
Stylin’ Purple Hat
BoE LW crafted: Pattern: Stylin’ Purple Hat.

This helm is very easy to get a hold of, nice stats, and is your best bet until you hit some heroics.

Neck:
Necklace of the Deep
BoE JC crafted: 3 Motes of Water, 10 Jaggal Pearls, 1 Black Pearl.
This neck is amazing not only because it is ridiculously easy to get, but it has 2 Red gem sockets. Pop in a couple of Shifting Nightseyes and you have a piece that will last you a long time. Not only is it great, but you can equip it at level 65!

Shoulders:
Shoulderpads of Assassination
Assuming you don’t have any rogues in the group to fight you for these, they work decently if you don’t want to PvP for gear. They drop off the last boss in normal Sethekk Halls. They also have 2 Yellow sockets to boot.

Cloak:
Thoriumweave Cloak
Pretty much the second best druid tanking cloak out there (until you hit the armor cap at least), and you can get it from the first boss in regular mode Mechanar. Super easy to farm, and it is awesome.

Chest:
Heavy Clefthoof Vest
BoE LW crafted: Pattern: Heavy Clefthoof Vest
This chest has 2 Yellow and 1 Red Socket, and is not difficult to get.

Jerkin of the Untamed Spirit
You can get this chest piece from an easy 2 person quest in Hellfire at level 58! Incredible stats, and will last you from then until level 70 when you have your Heavy Clefthoof Vest made.

Wrist:
Umberhowl’s Collar
Quite a lengthy quest chain out in Shadowmoon, but well worth it.

Hands:
Verdant Gloves
Another lengthy quest chain for these out in Shadowmoon.

Waist:
Manimal’s Cinch
Another Shadowmoon quest, but this is a VERY nice belt, even though it’s a green.

Legs:
Heavy Clefthoof Leggings
BoE LW crafted: Pattern: Heavy Clefthoof Leggings
2 Blue and 1 Yellow gem sockets, straightforward materials.

Feet:
Heavy Clefthoof Boots
BoE LW crafted: Pattern: Heavy Clefthoof Boots
Blue and Yellow sockets, and again, not bad mats.

Rings:
There isn’t much you can do here without Kara/heroics. The Violet Signet of Defense (Kara Rep) and Ring of Unyielding Force (25 Heroic Badges) are the best here until 25 mans, and even then, they’re still good.

But until then…

Iron Band of the Unbreakable
Normal Mode Old Hillsbrad.

Delicate Eternium Ring
BoE JC crafted: Design: Delicate Eternium Ring

Trinkets:
Badge of Tenacity
It is a random BoE drop in Blade’s Edge Plateau, or else costs about 1000g depending on your server. However, it is VERY much worth the pain to get it, especially with its 2 min cooldown 150 Agi for 20 seconds use.

Darkmoon Card: Vengeance
Will cost you a hefty sum of money, but lots of stam, and a proc that adds to your aggro generation.

Commander’s Badge
A nice chunk of Stamina if you feel so inclined to reach Revered with the Netherwing.

Engineering also has 2 similar BoP trinkets, the Gnomish Poultryizer, and Goblin Rocket Launcher.

Weapons:
Earthwarden
This is THE tanking weapon until you get into SSC and hope for a random trash drop. Well worth the grind to Exalted with Cenarion. A MUST have.

Braxxis’ Staff of Slumber
Pretty much a lazy man’s Earthwarden. A decent BoE that you should be able to find on the AH for around 50g (depending on your server). Use this until you’re Exalted with Cenarion.

Enchants:
Throw Agi chants on everything that will take them (cloak, gloves, boots, weapon), and +stats on the others (bracers, chest). Why agi over stam you ask? In my opinion, having avoidance and mitigation is better than just being a sponge. Plus, more agi = more crit which means more threat generation. Also, the agi/stats enchants are overall cheaper than the stamina one.

For the helm glyph, Glyph of the Defender until you’re crit immune, then go to Glyph of Ferocity.

Shoulders: Inscription of the Knight or Inscription of Warding (or the greater ones if you have the rep). Like the helm, use these until you’re safely over the crit cap and switch to Inscription of the Blade or Inscription of Vengeance.

Legs: Clefthide Leg Armor. No point really in getting Nethercleft Leg Armor until you get some nice epics, or you have the extra money to spend.

For gems, there is a lot of debate between druids. Some go Solid Star of Elune in EVERY socket. For starting off, this is probably your best bet, since you’re getting a nice bit of Agi just from the enchants. This isn’t exactly a bad choice, but I personally like balanced stats, once you start getting better gear. I prefer to put Shifting Nightseye‘s in my red/blue sockets, and if there is a bonus that is helpful, I’ll put in Glinting Noble Topaz for the yellow sockets. Why those and not, say, Enduring Talasite? It is because hit means you don’t miss, and when you don’t miss that means you generate more threat. Also, defense rating is next to useless once you’re crit immune.

Use your own discretion though when enchanting/gemming. Gem and enchant to what stats you think you lack or if you’re short a tiny bit from being crit immune.

So what do your stats look like with this gear? For these calculations I used 2 Shifting Nightseye in the neck piece, and 2 Enduring Talasite in the Shoulders to hit the crit cap. The rest of the gems are all Solid Star of Elune regardless of socket color, and all enchants are Agility or Stats. The exalted Scryer shoulder inscription and epic leg armor are used in these calcs, so your stats may vary slightly, and if you’re Aldor, you may need to swap in another Enduring Talasite to stay at/above 2.6% crit reduction. Stats also assume Survival of the Fittest and Thick Hide.

Final Numbers

Armor: 23995
HP: 13558 (Night Elf)
14256 (Tauren)
Dodge: 32.93% (Night Elf)
31.16% (Tauren)
Crit Reduction: 2.62%**

** Also, resilience stacks on top of this as well, so if you have some PvP items, just add up what the tooltip says for the resilience and defense, and if it’s at 2.60% or more, you’re golden.

Now, these are very good stats, especially for not even having to step foot inside a heroic! Also, aside from a couple of drops, these are all rep/quest/crafted items, so you don’t have to worry about the dice for most of your gear. If you look at Matt’s Kara Requirements for bear tanks:
415 def with 3/3 Survival of the Fittest, 12000 hp, 30% Dodge, 20k armor
You’re over the mark with this gear setup. Not too shabby. Now, that Survival of the Fittest comment brings us to spec.

Speccing Your Feral Druid for Endgame

Survival of the Fittest (SotF) is the only mandatory talent, while there are many that are strongly suggested to have, and others that are strongly suggested not to have. Why is SotF mandatory? Because with 3/3 you reduce your chance to be crit by 3%. Seeing as level 73 bosses have a 5.6% chance to crit, this means you only need 2.6% from gear. Also, the added 3% to all stats is a nice thing to have as well. Hopping over to the resto tree, 5/5 Furor for extra rage at the beginning of pulls, 5/5 Naturalist for 10% extra damage, and Omen of Clarity for rage free attacks every now and then.

As for talents you shouldn’t get, Feral Aggressions is pretty much useless. Nurturing Instinct is more than useless as well. Shredding Attacks is nice if you plan to be kitty in groups a bit, but if you don’t plan on it, skip it. The rest of the feral tree is pretty much a must have. That means you have 1-3 extra talent points that you can put wherever. Natural Shapeshifter is nice, or Nature’s Grasp if you plan on some PvP. Yeah, it may sound like I’m telling you how to spec, but honestly, look at any feral druid that has at least cleared Kara, and their spec probably follows these guidelines.

Well, I hope you made it through my long post (I honestly didn’t think I had that much to say!) and hopefully helps get you started on your way towards druid tankage. If people find this helpful, I may be so inclined to make a resto version of this guide.

Masato
Feral one day, Resto the next.

Matt’s note: Make a comment and persuade him to make a resto guide. If he does that, then I can finish up my Paladin gear list and I’ll have all four bases covered =).

Raid Juggling

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In hockey, there is a term called line juggling. Typically, when a team has difficulty scoring and getting momentum going the coach will start juggling his forwards together in the chance that they will click, find chemistry, and score.

On Sunday, Carnage has been able to consistently transition from Phase 3 to phase 4 while losing no more than 1 player. We were able to get Kael down to approximately 70%. Earlier in the night, one of our Paladins had to leave due to personal problems. Instead of 4 Paladins, we ran 3 Paladins and replaced him with a Resto Druid.

Tonight we’re diving back into Kael. The confidence is there. In fact, all of our future signup raids have changed from SSC/TK to Mount Hyjal/Black Temple.

But here’s what puzzles me.

Apparently, we’re dropping our Resto Druid and bringing our 4th Paladin back into the lineup. Both of these players are trial members so there’s no issue of seniority here. Now I also know it’s not my place to question the wisdom of the raid leaders. My job is to make sure our players in the raid have the health required to do the job they need to do. I’m not the one deciding who gets benched for the rest of the period or who gets coupled with who out there.

But Sunday was the furthest we’ve ever gotten on Kael. Why change what has arguably had the most success? Not only that, but our last two attempts that night were so spot on that we got him down to that 70% range (+/- 10%) consecutively.

How does that old adage go again? If it ain’t broke don’t fix it?

I’m not going to openly question the decision of the GM’s in this one. It’s out of my hands anyway. They have more to handle on their plate without me asking why we’re changing the lineup. I just found it surprising. I don’t know enough about Paladins in a 25 man situation. I don’t know what kind of advantage we would capitalize by bringing a 4th Paladin (Kings, Salv, Might/Wis, Light?).

But for all you young GM’s out there, if you have a set group of players that have been able to deliver success then I say stick with that group. Ride their momentum. Players are on a hot streak for only so long.

On the other side of the spectrum, if your raid continues to have troubles on a raid boss that you should not be having problems on, then start raid juggling. Get your prot pally to respec Holy and your Warrior to respec prot. Start changing things up. Move your healers around, put your tank healers on the raid, your raid healers on the tank. Something is not working and you’ve given it 9 tries. It’s unlikely it’s going to work on the 10th. Bite the bullet, start juggling.

The Chain of Progression in Raids

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Raid members ready to go and do something

In case you’ve ever wondered what raid bosses and instances to do in what order, I’ve compiled a list here from Karazhan onwards. This list is aimed mostly at Guilds who have started raiding and aren’t sure what’s best for them or their Guild. Obviously you can do them in any order that your Guild likes, but there are some bosses which should be done first before going into other instances.

Edit: Rankings are based largely on difficulty level and convenience for Guilds.

Karazhan

Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, Opera, Curator, Shade, Chess, Prince.

Once you’ve taken down Prince a few times and you think your 10 man team is up to snuff, you can go proceed to go after Nightbane, Illhoof and Netherspite.

You’re also ready to start tackling the first 4 or so bosses in Zul’Aman.

Mallet with a wolf

At this point, your Guild is now officially ready for the 25 mans. Your first 25 man test?

Gruul’s Lair and Magtheridon

Take down High King Maulgar then follow up with Gruul. Once you’ve gotten them down easily, consider going after Magtheridon.

Magtheridon himself

There’s quite a few Guilds that I know of that have completely skipped Mag in favour of launching right into TK and SSC thinking that Mag is too much of an effort required. To them, I say Mag is a piece of cake compared to boss fights at the Tier 5 level.

The reason you go after High King, Gruul and Mag is that these 3 bosses are idiot checks for your Guild.

Can the people in your raid handle being in the spotlight with important jobs?
Can your warlocks enslave and kill simultaneously?
Is your mage quick enough on the spellsteal?
Do your healers trust each other enough to not overlap each other and just do their jobs?

For Gruul, the question you want to ask is if your raid members are able to work together and cope with shatters. Are the tanks geared enough to do their job? Do players know how to run away from each other?

As I’ve mentioned before, a lot of Guilds skip Mag initially. Don’t be one of them. I highly advise giving Mag a few shots. Here, you’re testing the discipline of your raid and the endurance of your healers. You also want to discover how quick and effective your DPS is in a 25 man unit. Mag also sets your guild up to have 4-5 skilled and geared tanks. Once you get past the initial phase 1 hurdle, it’s up to the healers and your 10 volunteers to click cubes. If 10 people can’t click cubes properly and time it, you’ve no business being in SSC or TK.

Tier 5 Instances (SSC and TK)

There’s essentially 2 ways you can go about it. You can go into SSC and clear straight to Lurker. The alternative is to crash TK and bring down Lootreaver Voidreaver followed by Solarian.

Hydross in SSC

While your working on those 3 bosses (in any order), your tanks should be gearing up for Hydross.

Now at this stage, I suggest working through the T5 raid’s in an order like this:

  • Voidreaver/Solarian/Lurker
  • Hydross
  • Tidewalker
  • Fathom-Lord
  • Leotheras
  • Al’ar

At this point, you’ll be at the coveted 5/6 SSC and 3/4 TK mark. Take your pick between Vashj or Kael.

I’d say give Vashj a couple of shots but that’s because I find her a little little easier as compared to Kael who I think is a whackjob.

T6 Raids (Hyjal and BT)

I don’t have a clue here. I heard it’s Rage Winterchill and then straight into BT for the first 3-4 bosses.

Does anyone have an idea of what should come next?

Minimum Class Stat Requirements for Zul’Aman

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Here it is. This is the long anticipated list of the minimum stat requirements you need to do the early bosses of Zul’Aman successfully. Having stats like these should carry you through Bear boss with a little luck.

Guilds attempting to go through raiding should understand the principle of progression. When you’re going through it for the first time, you should have no blues and not need more than 1 or 2 items from Karazhan. You will have acquired all the badge gear that you need and you’ve done Gruul’s or Mag a few times so that you’ve developed some ingame smarts.

As always, this list is subject to change at any time and without notice with your help and feedback.

Remember, I’m only a Priest and a Shaman. I don’t know the other classes as well. Any corrections and suggestions will be valued. All figures are after any kind of raid buffs or consumables and should be used as a guideline rather than a rule. These numbers are based off of observations and conversations with Guildmates and other colleagues who have made progress in ZA.

In Zul’Aman, there is a certain threshold of stats you need in order to survive and be productive. If you can meet them unbuffed, then you’re fine. There’s a variety of consumables and buffs to configure your character to surpass the mark that you need. It doesn’t matter what buffs they are as long as they exceed it. But if you go in there raid buffed and you DO NOT match the stats you need, you will be ineffective.

Let’s use my Priest as an example. I strongly advise anything over 8500 health. I’ve got a Priest that’s 6500 without buffs. Raid buffs he would top out at about 8000 health. That’s not enough. You never know what kind of class make up you will have going in there. You may not have Kings. You may not have fort. Maybe you don’t have a certain flask or something. This isn’t a 25 man raid where you can expect to get every buff known to man. That’s why I created the list with raid buffs in mind.

Do not take Zul’Aman lightly. It drops loot that is on par with Tier 5. The difficulty is about the same as SSC and TK.

Updates and modifications at the bottom of the page

Suggested Composition

2 Well geared tanks, ideally different classes (Pally/Druid, Pally/Warrior, etc).
3 Healers (Ideally 1 Priest for Imp. Fort and Imp. DS)
3 Caster DPS (Warlock, Mage, Shadow Priest, or feel free to toss in a Moonkin and an Elemental Shaman instead)
2 Physical DPS (Hunter, rogue, enhancement shaman, DPS Warrior or any combination thereof)

The DPS part isn’t as crucial. You can mix and match however you like. Zul’Jin has a phase where you have to have some physical damage going in there and when you read about it, you will understand why (phase 3). Bring 3 healers. I seriously recommend bringing 3 healers. You can disregard everything else on this page if you want, but please listen to me when I say to bring 3 healers.

If any player’s health is below 8000 after all buffs are cast, you may want to consider someone else instead.

Tanks

Note: I shouldn’t have to mention it, but as a tank you should be uncrushable and uncrittable at this point.

Warrior

Health: ~17000
Block/Parry/Dodge: A very high number combined. Hoping to find a Warrior to give me an exact figure.

Paladin

Health: ~17000
Mana: ~5000+
Block/Parry/Dodge: ~100% combined
Spell damage: 200+

Druid

Health: ~17000
Dodge: ~40%
Armor: ~30000+ (Thanks Karthis, Argonaut)

Healers

Note: The combined healing output of your healers should be approximately 5000. For example, you could have a Paladin with 1500, a Priest with 1800, and a Druid with 1500. But don’t go too far in the wrong direction. I strongly suggest bringing in 3 healers.

Holy Priest

Health: ~8500+
Mana: ~9500+
+Healing: ~1600
MP5: ~140 while casting

Resto Druid

Health: ~8500 (Tree druids move slow)
Mana: ~9500
+Healing: ~1600
MP5: ~140 while casting

Holy Paladin

Health: ~8500
Mana: ~9500+
+Healing: ~1600 (Flash of Light spam)
MP5: ~140 while casting
Spell crit: 20%+

Resto Shaman

Health: ~9000
Mana: ~8500
+Healing: ~1600 (Rank 2 or Rank 5 Chain Heals)
MP5: ~150 while casting (Achievable with recent Water Shield improvements)

DPS Classes

Note: Caster DPS should be hitcapped (Thanks Trollin’).

Rogues

Health: ~9000+
Attack Power: 1800
Hit: 200 rating+
Crit: 25%+

Shaman

Elemental

Heath: ~9000
Mana: ~8000
Spell damage: ~850+
MP5: ~130 while casting

Enhancement

Health: ~9000+
Mana: ~6000
Attack Power: 1600
Hit: 9%
Crit: 27%

Mage

Health: ~9000+
Mana: 9000
Spell damage: 900+
Crit: 30%

Warlock

Affliction
Health: 10000+
Mana: 8500+
Spell damage: +900

Destruction

See above. Warlocks, comment if it should be different.

Hunters

BM/MM

Health: ~9500+
Mana: 6500+
AP: 2200+
Hit: Capped
Crit: 20%+

Survival

Health: ~9500+
Mana: 6500 mana
AP: 2200+
Hit: Capped
Crit: 40%
Agility: 950+

Druid

Moonkin

Health: 9000+
Mana: 9000
Crit: 18%
MP5: 120 MP5
Spell damage: 900

Shadow Priest

Health: 9500
Mana: 8500
Spell damage: 900

Fury Warrior

Health: ~9500+
Attack power: 1800+
Crit: 40% (That too much to ask?)

Retribution Paladins

Health: 9000+
Mana: 7000+
Crit: 26%
AP: 1700

There you have it folks! Those’re are my suggested stats to get into Zul’Aman. Use it as a guide as opposed to a rule. I’m expecting a flood of comments saying that I went too high here or too low there. Keep it coming! Any updates to this, I will post on the bottom.

Updates:

12/01: Lowered +hit requirements for melee. Equalized mana regen among healers. Lowered health requirements among melee. Equalized tank health. Thanks Mera!

15/01: Added armor figures for Druids (Thanks Karthis). Raised mana pool and healing for Paladins slightly (Thanks Arduanne).

16/01: Split up the Hunters into three different specs. Posted one for survival. MM and BM I’m unsure of, so I’m using existing numbers. Hoping another Hunter can confirm.

14/03: Added fury warriors, Ret Paladins, several stats adjusted for hunters, shamans, etc.

Tip for Shadow Priests on Kael’Thas

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Sasstar told me about this yesterday when we were busy heroically wiping on Kael. If you have Shadow Priests in your Guild, what you can do is have them cast rank 1 Shadow Word Pain repeatedly on all the weapons during Phase 2. This will stack the Shadow Weaving debuff (which increases shadow damage by a lot). Just cast Shadow Word Pain back and forth on the weapons.

Your Warlocks will love you.

By utilizing this, we’ve managed to kill the weapons quicker and get into positions for Phase 3 when all of his advisors are back up. Our best has been Phase 4. Sunday we’re going to spend the entire evening from 1630 – 2100 on Kael. Hopefully we can take him down early, go back to SSC and clear out Vashj.