Filed under: Raid Guides

Totem Talk: Cataclysm raiding as a restoration shaman, part 1

by Joe Perez Apr 26th 2011 at 8:00PM

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and co-host of the Raid Warning podcast), shows you how.

You've done all your prep work, and the time has come to step into a raid. You've got your gear shined up and ready to go. You've got your gems and enchants in place, and you have chosen your raiding spec and glyphs. You're here to chew bubblegum and down raid bosses ... and you're all out of bubblegum.

Now, while you may be prepared to step into the ring and take on Ivan Drago, preparing yourself with some boss knowledge is always good. We're going to start by taking a look at all the bosses in this tier's raiding content in order of what is largely considered to be the standard progression path. I'll talk about them them roughly in order of easiest to hardest difficulty, with emphasis on what you should know as a raiding restoration shaman for these fights.

Filed under: Shaman, Raiding, (Shaman) Totem Talk, Raid Guides

Patch 4.1: Guide to the new Zul'Aman, part 2

by Allison Robert Apr 26th 2011 at 7:00PM

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raid Guides

Patch 4.1: Guide to the new Zul'Aman

by Allison Robert Apr 26th 2011 at 7:00PM

Of the two "new" troll dungeons introduced in patch 4.1, Zul'Aman was the more difficult on the PTR, to the point that it actually felt a little overtuned for folks trying to do it solely in heroic blues. I'd compare it to heroic Magisters' Terrace of The Burning Crusade or heroic Halls of Reflection in Wrath of the Lich King, at least in the sense that it can be a pretty unforgiving place if you're not sitting on any raid-quality gear. I only ever pugged ZA while on the PTR, so estimates of the content's difficulty are necessarily colored by that. If you're going to do this place with a competent set of guildies, you probably won't need to worry as much.

If you're familiar with ZA's pre-4.1 incarnation, you'll recognize a lot of the same mechanics, mobs, and bosses at 85. I used to organize "bear runs" for my guild back in BC and would go so far as to say that, in marked contrast to Zul'Gurub, about 90% of the dungeon's raid mechanics have survived in one form or another.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raid Guides

Patch 4.1: Guide to the new Zul'Gurub, part 2

by Allison Robert Apr 26th 2011 at 2:00PM

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raid Guides

Patch 4.1: Guide to the new Zul'Gurub

by Allison Robert Apr 26th 2011 at 2:00PM

Of the two "new" troll-themed 5-mans going live in patch 4.1, Zul'Gurub seemed by far the easier with the groups I had on the public test realm (PTR), though both it and Zul'Aman require an average ilevel of 346 in order to queue through the dungeon finder. However, if you're going to pug this content, be advised that there are a number of different mechanics that can wipe groups quickly.

Shifting Perspectives readers will be familiar with elements of this article, as I wrote a guide to Zul'Gurub for druid tanks and healers in late March. I've expanded that here and have also tried to include a sense of the instance from a less class-specific viewpoint. Because the instance's mini-bosses have fairly simple mechanics (and regrettably, I never landed a group that did all of them), I've ignored them here in favor of the instance's five "real" bosses.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raid Guides

Raid Rx: Blackwing Descent healing playbook

by Matt Low Mar 20th 2011 at 6:00PM

Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related.

No, this isn't the playbook that will help you secure your dreams and fantasies. This playbook is designed to act as a quick reference guide for normal mode bosses on 25-man. It can be nerve-wracking to organize six to eight healers in a 25-player setting. Sometimes you forget things. Sometimes you're not sure which player or which class is optimal for a given role.

If you don't know where to start, then start here. (Note: The playbook assumes that the raid group has a basic understanding of encounter abilities and assorted phases.)

Filed under: Raiding, Raid Rx (Raid Healing), Raid Guides

Raid Rx: Heroic Halfus healing case study

by Matt Low Mar 7th 2011 at 3:00PM

Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. If you're looking for more healing advice, check out the Plus Heal community and Matticast, the new healing, raiding, and guild management podcast.

If there ever was an encounter in which Atonement-specced priests really stood out, this would be it. Aside from that, Halfus on heroic mode is a great test for healing leaders and raid leaders on the art of syncing defensive cooldowns.

Objective: Can your healing team help the raid survive the first minute of the encounter?

Once you get past that first minute, the hardest part is over, and your raid will get there. In this post, I'll show you a textbook case of cooldown planning from start to finish.

On the the matter of cooldowns, it looks like shaman will be getting their own fairly soon.

Spirit Link Totem: Reduces damage taken by all party and raid members within 10 yards by 10%. This lasts 6 seconds, and every second it is active the health of all affected players is redistributed among them, such tha teach player end sup with the same percentage of their maximum health. This counts as an Air totem and has a 3 minute cooldown.

For restoration druids, Malfurion's Gift appears to reduce Tranquility by 2.5/5 minutes. The actual effect of Tranquility has not changed. If I were to guess, I'd say it would get modified further for reduced incoming damage while the spell is being channeled. No confirmation yet either way.

So how does one survive Halfus in the 25-player raid?

Filed under: Raid Rx (Raid Healing), Raid Guides

WoW.com's Guide to Halion

by Michael Gray Jun 3rd 2010 at 11:00AM

Halion is the final raid encounter to be released in Wrath of the Lich King. While Halion is not the most advanced or progressed boss in the expansion -- that's still Arthas -- he is going to be the final word on raiding for a while. The comparison between Halion and Sartharion is pretty valid. When you enter the raid entrance, there are three mini-bosses with whom you'll need to do battle. After clearing them, you get the opportunity to throw down with Halion himself. The mechanics are obviously different, but the raid has a similar overall feel. Don't worry -- there's no three-drakes-up mechanic this time around.

(Video via EFBIEEI1)

Table of contents

Composition
General strategy
Abilities
Tank strategy
DPS strategy
Healing strategy
Other resources

Filed under: Raid Guides

WoW.com's Guide to the Lich King

by Michael Gray Jun 3rd 2010 at 11:00AM

The Lich King is not only the titular character of this expansion, but is the ultimate raid boss in the Icecrown Citadel. Finally, after two years, members of the Horde and Alliance will have the opportunity to settle up their scores with Arthas. Befitting the final boss of the expansion's raiding progress

Table of Contents

Filed under: Raid Guides

WoW.com's Guide to Sindragosa

by Michael Gray Jun 3rd 2010 at 11:00AM

The second you kill the two ice dragons after Dreamwalker, Sindragosa will immediately fly down into the pit to start the encounter. You don't have real long to set up your raid, so have your buffs, pots and order of operations all well laid out as soon as you approach these dragons.

Sindragosa shares a similar feel to fighting Sapphiron back in Naxxramas, which is appropriate since they're both ice skeleton dragon wyrm things.

Table of contents

Filed under: Raid Guides

WoW.com's Guide to Valithria Dreamwalker

by Michael Gray Jun 3rd 2010 at 11:00AM

Valithria Dreamwalker is the easiest fight to DPS. No, really, it's amazing. Unfortunately, your success with Dreamwalker has almost nothing to do with your DPS.

The basic premise of the Valithria Dreamwalker encounter is thus: She is being held captive by the bad guys. She's more than capable of getting herself free ... if only she weren't damaged. So your job is to heal her to full. But that's a lot of health, so she opens portals into the Emerald Dream so that your healers can juice up their own healing. Then, they heal her. Meanwhile, the rest of your raid kills a bunch of adds.

Table of contents

Filed under: Raid Guides

WoW.com's Guide to Blood-Queen Lana'thel

by Michael Gray Jun 3rd 2010 at 11:00AM

Get bitten. Savor the succulent flavor of your raid friends once every 50 seconds. Do crazy, sick DPS. Oh, and stay alive, 'cause this lady's got a lot of health.

The Blood-Queen is a fairly unique encounter. The gimmick here is that Lana'thel will bite one of your raid members seconds after the fight begins. Doing so will turn that player into a vampire. Before too much longer, that person will feed on another, and then that person will need to feed. This horrible pattern of events will continue until everyone's a vampire.

Like many other boss fights, Blood-Queen Lana'thel has an attack that can cause you to damage nearby allies. The range for this fight is 6 yards, but doing a range check for 10 yards is a good way to be safe -- there's plenty of room. Because of the need for distance, the best positioning for a caster is somewhere in the outer circle of the room.

Table of contents

Filed under: Raid Guides

WoW.com's Guide to Blood Prince Council

by Michael Gray Jun 3rd 2010 at 11:00AM

The Blood Princes can be a difficult fight for many raids, forcing folks to move, react and adapt throughout the entire fight. The issue with the Blood Princes isn't that the individual parts are so difficult. The challenge is that the Council is actually three different fights that swap phases according to which of the San'layn is empowered at the time.

Table of contents

Filed under: Raid Guides

WoW.com's Guide to Rotface

by Michael Gray Jun 3rd 2010 at 11:00AM

Rotface manages to be both a DPS check and a coordination check in a single fight. This is because Rotface does things to your raid. The longer you let Rotface stack up these things, the more difficult Rotface becomes. The issue isn't necessarily that the damage increases the longer the fight goes on. The issue is more that the likelihood that something will go wrong increases the longer you have to endure the battle. It's therefore best to burn him down as quickly as possible, even while trying to handle the coordination elements of the fight.

Table of contents

Filed under: Raid Guides

WoW.com's Guide to Festergut

by Michael Gray Jun 3rd 2010 at 11:00AM

Now that you've conquered the tragic hero-turned-evil Deathbringer Saurfang, the path is clear for you to go into the Plagueworks. This is where some of the slimy, funky, icky creatures serving Arthas keep their truly hideous and nasty creatures. "Slimy" really is the word here, as the whole area just seems ... moist.

Table of contents

Filed under: Raid Guides

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