Since the news came out about the changes to Gift of the Earthmother in patch 3.3, which will put a much higher premium on haste for us and blow our current haste soft cap right out of the water, I’ve been on the hop trying to pick up haste where ever I could find it.  I always rode the soft cap as closely as possible before, so I was starting out with just 342 haste when I learned I was going to need to more than double that amount to have the same 1 second cast times for spells like Rejuv.  My haste is now at 593, a big improvement, but I’ve got a ways to go.  A lot of the changes I made were in gemming, favoring Reckless Ametrine over pure spell power gems in many cases.  However, I’ve also been on the hunt for many specific loot drops that offer haste.  Since I doubt I’m alone in working over time to improve my haste stats, I decided to make a sort of best in slot list for druids looking to maximize haste for 3.3.  This is not a complete list of resto gear with haste.  I have tried to focus on the highest level gear available that will improve your haste rating.  Enjoy!

Neck

Freya’s Choker of Warding - This is the neck that I’m currently sporting.  It has 39 haste on it and can be picked up from Flame Leviathan in Ulduar, so it’s a pretty easily obtainable drop.
Charm of Meticulous Timing – Drops from Hard Mode XT-002 in Ulduar with 40 haste on it.  The mp5 on this necklace is not ideal for us, but blue socket with a +5 spell power bonus is nice.
Cry of the Val’kyr – Drops from the twin Val’kyrs in TOC 25.  Has 43 haste on it.  The version from heroic 25 TOC also has a yellow socket, which is great for a reckless ametrine, but wow armory shows no socket bonus on this.  Wowhead on the other hand, shows a +5 spell power bonus.  Can that be right?

Head

Helm of Abundant Growth – You can buy this helm from the Emblem of Triumph Quartermaster for 75 Emblems of Triumph.  You’ll get 74 Haste for your trouble, plus a yellow socket for a reckless ametrine if you want to add 10 more haste.
Stormrage Crown – I just picked this up recently from Onyxia 25 man.  Aside from the fact that I get to look like a moose (and that is just hawt! =P), I get 84 haste and a yellow socket on this bad boy.  Sweet!

Shoulders

Malfurion/Runetotem’s Spaulders of Triumph are your best bet here.  The regular 25 man version will give you 67 haste, whereas if you are leet enough to grab some from heroic 25, you’ll have 76 haste on your shoulders.  Either way, if you’re working on your haste and still want to hold onto the T9 4 piece set bonus, your shoulders won’t be the slot to skip.  The 10 man version, the Spaulders of Conquest, will yield 60 haste.

Back

Bolvar’s Devotion/Lady Liadrin’s Conviction – If you’re among the best of the best, you can pick up one of these cloaks with 57 haste on them from a tribute chest for completing heroic 25 TOC with 50 attempts remaining.  So… yea.  lol.  Moving right along.
Shawl of the Refreshing Winds – A regular version of this drops from Icehowl in 25 TOC with 50 haste, while a beefed up version drops from him in Heroic 25 TOC giving only 49 haste but adding a yellow socket bonus, perfect for a gem with haste on it.
Shawl of the Devout Crusader - drops from the tribute chest in 10 man hard mode TOC with 49 haste.

Chest

The most haste you can currently get is on the Robes/Vestments of the Shattered Fellowship, which drops from the Faction Champions in 25 TOC.  74 haste is on this item, but you’ll have to weigh that against losing the 4 pc t9 set bonus.  I felt it was a better option to give up the head slot for Stormrage Crown and keep the other 4 tier pieces, as the Stormrage Crown gives me 10 more haste than this chest would, plus a yellow socket.  Seemed like the more solid choice to me.  The herioc version gives 3 more haste and a yellow socket, making it a tougher call.

Wrists

Best in slot here is going to be the Bracers/Bindings of the Autumn Willow.  These drop from Lord Jaraxxus in TOC 25.  The regular version has 50 haste on it, while the heroic drop gives 57.

Weapon

One Handed Weapon

Misery/Suffering’s End – Drops off Anub in 25 TOC.  The regular version will bring you 58 haste, while 66 haste comes with the heroic version.
If you’re up for hard modes ending in tribute chests, you can find Heartsmasher/Heartcrusher in the tribute chest for heroic 10 man TOC.

Two Handed Weapon

Cold Convergence – Dropping from Anub’arak in 10 TOC, the regular staff has 116 haste and a yellow socket.  The Heroic version haste is 128 and maintains the yellow socket found on the regular version.

Enlightenment – Drops from the Twin Val’kyrs in 20 man TOC.   On regular, this staff has 108 haste, a yellow socket, and a +6 haste socket bonus.  The heroic version has 2 yellow sockets, a +8 haste socket bonus, and 117 haste!  

Off Hand

There are currently no Off Hand items in the highest loot tiers that have haste bonuses on them.

Rings

Ring/Circle of the Darkmender – This is the best in slot ring for a resto druid looking to maximize haste, no doubt about it.  Dropping from Lord Jaraxxus, the regular version has 50 haste on it, while the heroic iteration has 49 haste plus a yellow socket.
Band of the Invoker- also has 50 haste to offer, and can be purchased from the Emblem of Triumph Quartermaster for 35 emblems.

Feet

Blizzard has not seen fit to put haste on foot slot items.  Sorry, Charlie.  =)

Legs

Runetotem’s/Malfurion’s Leggings of Triumph – Once again, your 25 TOC tier pants are going to be your best bet for getting haste on your legs, with one exception below.  The regular version adds 82 haste, whereas heroic britches will give you 94 haste.
Legwraps of the Awakening are an alternative, dropping from Anub in 25 TOC with 90 haste on the regular version and 94 plus a yellow socket on the heroic pants.  As always, however, you’ll have to weigh the benefit of the extra haste against breaking up your set bonus.

Waist

Belt/Cord of Pale Thorns – Drops from the Twin Val’kyrs on 25 TOC.  There’s 59 haste plus a yellow socket on the regular version, and 60 haste plus a yellow socket on the heroic belt (with an added red socket).

Hands

No haste on TOC level resto gloves.  Boomkins get haste.  We get crit.  /sad face.

So there’s the list!  What are you waiting for?  Hurry up!  Go get some!  =P

The last tanking guide in the four part series is now up, Tank Triage:  Healing Druids.  This time I have

Elathan
Nephis, from Two Classy
Liquidnight
The Big Bear Butt, from The Big Bear Butt

to thank for their time and contributions to helping us healers become better at what we do by adding to our understanding of what they do.

Overall, I think this project was a great success.  I think the tanks did an excellent job of answering the questions in a thoughtful way that is simple enough for us healers to get a grasp of what they are doing when tanking.  I hope that you all are as pleased with the results as I am.

The 3rd of 4 tank healing guides is now live on the site!  You can find Pally tanks talking about what they do and what they need from their healers at Tank Triage:  Healing Paladins.  This time I have the following pallies to thank:

Gant, from Tank, Heal, DPS
Fierabras (my very own GM <3)
Ratshag , from Need More Rage

If other Paladins visit the page and wish to add to the guide, they can feel free to post in the comments on this page.

Enjoy!

I’ve been feeling the weight of the guide-type posts piling up with no real index to help people to find this kind of post on my site, so today I worked on an index page for them.  You can find them the page by clicking on the “Guides” tab under the header, or by following this link.  Enjoy!

One of the responsibilities that raiders take on is to raise their reputation with various factions in order to obtain items or enchants from them that will buff their performance.  Some of them also offer just cool perks, like achievements and titles, that you might be interested in picking up.  However, it is often hard to find out or remember what factions offer reputation rewards that are beneficial for you as you go through the game.  I thought I’d give just a quick run through of the reputations that offer rewards worth farming in Wrath of the Lich King for Restos.

Cenarion Circle - This faction makes its home in the druid city of Moonglade, but most of the ways to gain reputation with them are in Silithus.  The main reason to farm reputation with them at this point in the game is to get the title of Guardian of Cenarius, which is the coolest title ever for druids to have!

Cenarion Expedition is the other reputation you will need to grind to exalted in order to become Guardian of Cenarius.  Rep is most easily obtained for this faction by running the instances in Zangarmarsh.

Argent Crusade rep can be gotten from doing a number of daily quests in Zul’Drak and Dragonblight, as well as from doing champion level quests in the Argent Tournament.  You might consider raising rep with this faction if you are gearing up and needing a ring upgrade, as the the Signet of Hopeful Light becomes available once you reach exalted.  you can equip a Argent Crusade Tabard while running level 80 instances to gain rep with this faction.

The Kirin Tor reputation can be gained by doing the cooking or jewelworking dailies in Dalaran, by doing quests in Borean Tundra, Dragonblight, and Coldarra, and by doing the heroic instance dailies.  In addition, you can equip a Kirin Tor tabard while running level 80 instances to gain rep with this faction.  For someone with revered reputation they offer the Arcanum of Burning Mysteries, a head slot enchant that serves up crit and spell power, two stats that benefit Restos.  Also of possible interest is the Ghostflicker Waistband, available at exalted, which has Int, crit, spell power, and a blue socket, or the Robes of Crackling Flame, offering Int, haste, spell power, and a generous 26 mp5.  Those last two items aren’t specifically tailored to resto, but might be good choices regardless if they offer stats that you are trying to build for one reason or another.

The Knights of the Ebon Blade don’t offer a lot for Restos, but you might be interested in the Belt of Dark Mending, which has Int, Haste, and Spell Power on it for the exalted with this faction.  Reputation with them is gained largely through daily quests in Icecrown, and by wearing their tabard in level 80 dungeons.

The Sons of Hodir offer the best shoulder enchants in the game, so you really should focus on building rep with them.  There is a long, epic quest chain to open up rep with them, starting with They Took Our Men in K3.    Eventually you will open up 6 daily quests with this faction, and can also turn in Everfrost Chips or Relics of Ulduar for more reputation.  The payoff is the Greater Inscription of the Crag, available at exalted, which adds spell power and mp5 to your shoulders.

The Wyrmrest Accord offers another head slot enchant at revered, the  Arcanum of Blissful Mending, this time offering spell power and mp5.  In addition, you can pick up the Sandals of Crimson Fury from them at exalted, which offer Int, haste, spell power, and a blue socket.  There are a large number of quests in Borean Tundra and Dragonblight that will boost your reputation with Wyrmrest, and a tabard as well.

And that’s it for now.  Unlike in the Burning Crusade, Blizzard has not tied reputation to specific instances or raid instances in Wrath of the Lich King, so all of the needed or enticing rep items in this expansion can actually be obtained before ever stepping foot in a raid.  If you are a raider, you should absolutely work to gain the rep needed to obtain the head and shoulder enchants discussed above, if nothing else.  Even prospective raiders should do so, as guilds will look over your reputation to ascertain how deep your commitment to raiding actually is based upon whether you’ve worked to get these enchants.  So if you haven’t already, work these reputation quests/dailies/tabards into your routine and knock them out to be/become the strongest raider you can be.

As you can see by my post below about making Tasty Cupcakes and Delicious Chocolate Cakes in preparation for Children’s Week, I’ve been doing what I can to prepare now for this holiday.  If you have participated in the holiday in the past, you will know that there is a LOT of running around involved, showing your orphan sites in Old World and Outlands, and it seems that there will be yet another string of quests this year taking you around Northrend starting with Orphan Matron Twinbreeze in Dragonblight!  There is a lot you can do in advance, however, to cut down on all of the activity that will be needed to complete the quests and achievements next week.  Here’s the scoop:

Many of the items that you will need to complete Children’s Week quests and achievements can be done before you ever pick up your little wards.  In addition, there seems to be some money to be made on this holiday if you are willing to play the market.  Hooray!

In terms of what you can gather up now, here’s a list of items and where to find them:

Tigule & Foror’s Strawberry Ice Cream – you will need to get two of these if you intend to complete both the Bad Example Achievement and the I Scream, You Scream quest, which is part of the Children’s Week questlines that start in Orgrimmar for Horde and in Stormwind for Alliance.  Although this ice cream will be available for sale from special Children’s Week vendors in Orgrimmar and Stormwind, you can pick it up early from Caregiver Isel Nagrand, the Telaar innkeeper in Nagrand located at coords 54.2, 76.  It is also available in the Shimmering Flats of Thousand Needles from Brivelthwerp at 77.4, 77.  If you miss picking this up early, though, it is not a big deal at all because during Children’s Week you will find it is being sold by Emmithue Smails, a Children’s Week vendor in Stormwind City who you will find in the Trade District of Stormwind just to the right of the large tree next to the mailbox in front of the bank. Alowicious Czervik will be standing near the bank in Orgrimmar during the holiday, and will have this for sale, as well.  A word to the wise, pick this up before you start running all over for the Children’s Week quest chains, whether you get it now or you wait until Children’s Week has begun.  Both the alliance and horde quest chains will have you running all over the place and you will be glad to have saved yourself a trip.

There are a number of food items that you can pick up in advance from Aimee at Pie, Pastry and Cakes, located in Dalaran near the barbershop at coords 51.2, 28.4.  From her you can obtain a Red Velvet Cupcake, a Dalaran Doughnut, a Dalaran Brownie, and a Lovely Cake that can be divided into Lovely Cake Slices.  Go visit her with 4 of your friends who want to participate in the holiday if you can, as most of these items are sold in stacks of 5.  You will need to eat one of each of these confections in front of your orphan to complete the Bad Example achievement. 

In addition, you are going to need to eat a Delicious Chocolate Cake and a Tasty Cupcake for that achievement.  These items, however, cannot be purchased from vendors.  They can only be made by people with the cooking skill who have the recipes.  If you cannot cook or do not wish to gather the ingredients yourself, you can look for these on the Auction House.  If you can find them now, you’ll probably save yourself some gold, as the price is likely to skyrocket once the holiday begins. 

However, if you are a cook, or if you are frugal and want to save yourself some gold, you might want to farm the ingredients ahead of time for these two items. 

The ingredients for a Delicious Chocolate Cake are:

8 simple flour – sold by cooking suppliers in all major cities
4 ice cold milk – sold by food and drink vendors and innkeepers in major cities in Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, as well as in low level towns on these continents.  Also drops off of low level mobs.
8 small eggs - dropped by low level birds in many areas.  The highest drop rate appears to be from Dire Condors in Redridge Mountains, located both to the north and the south of the lake in the middle of this zone.
Flask of port - sold by many, including bartenders and barmaids in the major cities of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor.
3 mageroyal - available as a drop off of numerous low level mobs (visit link for list) or can be gathered by herbalists.

 Tasty Cupcakes require fewer ingredients:

 2 simple flour – sold by cooking suppliers in all major cities
Northern Egg - drops most frequently from Goretalon Rocs in Sholozar Basin

 If you are a cook, you might consider making up extra cakes and cupcakes for sale on the auction house.  Even if you are not, however, it might be well worth your while to farm the ingredients for these recipes for two reasons.  1) you will probably be able to find a cook who will make what you need for nothing more than a tip if you have the ingredients already.  2)  the ingredients themselves will likely skyrocket in price over the next week as people seek them out to have their own recipes made.  Mageroyal, for example, is already selling for twice its normal cost on my server’s auction house. 

In addition to selling the food items that can only be made by cooks on the auction house over the coming week, and the ingredients of those cooking only items, you might also consider buying up extras of the items sold by Aimee at Pie, Pastry and Cakes in Dalaran to try your luck with them on the Auction House.  There are always players who lack resources, ambition, or time to go seek out items like this.  Not knowing where to find them, or not wanting to bother to make the trip to get them, they might seek them out on the auction house.  Don’t believe me?  Take a look on your local Auction House at the non-combat pets.  I bet you will find dozens that are available from vendors throughout Azeroth.  People buy them from the vendor, listing them on the Auction House for twice their value, and make a profit every day this way.  These food items that can only be found in one shop in the whole game should be no exception.

Lastly, as this is a PVE druid blog, I’m guessing that most readers here are not heavily into PVP.  I know I’m not.  So part of what I will be doing in preparation for Children’s Week is studying up on the battlegrounds that are part of the School of Hard Knocks achievement.  I’m dubious that I will get this one done, but it is possible that I will give it a shot.  Therefore, I’ve done a little work to gather some resources for the uninitiated:
How to capture the flag in World of Warcraft
WOW:  Master of Eye of the Storm
Warsong Gulch Battleground Guide
Alterac Valley Battleground Guide
Arathi Basin Battleground guide
Eye of the Storm Battleground guide 

Good luck out there!  I hope you and your orphans have the time of your lives!

Edit:  although there was speculation that there would be a Northrend component to Children’s Week this year, Orphan Matron Twinbreeze does not offer any related quests.

/yawn
/stretch

In the wee hours this morning I finished up the Noblegarden meta achievment.  Sylly the Noble at your service!  I must admit that as time went on, I lost some of the delight in the event that I posted about yesterday.  It became much more of a grind for me.  I think that it might have been better to space it out over several days, but I don’t have much time during the week days for anything but raiding, and next weekend is Children’s Week, so I decided to get it all out of the way as quickly as possible.  In doing so, I picked up some tips on how to get all of the eggs you need to complete the achievements or to purchase the goods that you are interested in. 

Overall, I picked up  164  eggs with chocolate in them yesterday.  100 for the Chocoholic achievement, 4 for Noble Garden (5 to buy the Noblegarden egg, but you can loot it after you hide it, so you get one back), 10 for the daily quest, and 50 to buy an Elegant Dress.  I actually didn’t farm 50 chocolates just to buy the dress.  I was farming them go get the Spring Robes to complete the Desert Rose achievement.  The robes dropped for me when I had about 38 chocolates, though, so I farmed 12 more for the dress since I was most of the way there.  In addition to those 164 eggs, I opened two with Tuxedo shirts, one with Tuxedo pants, two with Spring Flowers, and two with Spring Circlets. for a grand total of 171 eggs to complete all Noblegarden achievements with the exception of Dressed for the Occasion, which is not part of the meta achievement for the holiday.

Here is some advice on how to make this process as painless as possible.  First, if it makes sense for you to do this in the very early morning, than by all means do so.  When I was camping eggs Sunday morning I was camping one spawn at a time.  At 4:00 on Monday morning, I was camping 4 spawns at a time, and scooting around occassionally to pick up others, too.  I know this isn’t possible for everyone, but if you can gather eggs when there are very few people on, the process will go much more quickly.

Along the same lines, go to a place that isn’t very heavily trafficked if you can.  I did a lot of gathering at Azure Watch in the Draenei starting area, as the Exodar is easily Alliance’s least visited and most out of the way city.  There were people there, sure.  You had to go out there for the Spring Fling achievement, and others had the same idea that there might be less competition there.  But at 3 a.m. it was mostly a ghost town.

If you open an egg that turns you into a bunny, by all means stay a bunny!  When you are a bunny, the egg spawns are at eye level, making them much easier to see and to snatch up.

If you are gathering during a high traffic time on the server, find a spot where there is at least one spawn, or ideally two or three, within reachable distance of one spot.  Plant yourself there and stay put!  While you might find eggs if you go running around looking for them, there is a high chance that they are being camped by someone patient who is waiting to pounce on them the instant they appear.  You’re much better off being one of those patient people than you are being a yahoo running all over the place hoping for someone to be snoozing.  So find a spot, hunker down, throw on a movie or your favorite tunes, and wait. 

Yesterday at the height of the frenzy I was camping a one egg spawn spot.  I turned on autoloot to snatch the eggs as soon as they appeared on my screen.  I was in bunny form, hiding under a bush outside of Darnassus that had a spawn point that was pretty well hidden underneath of it.  Was it slow going?  Yes.  But it was steady.  Eventually someone directly behind me camping another spawn in an identical way wandered off and my one egg spawn hiding spot became a two egg hiding spot.  While people yelled around me about how it was impossible to find eggs, I collected them by the dozen by being still and patient and listening to some of my favorite music.

Eventually, I ended up zooming in my camera as far as it would go, so that my whole screen filled up with the egg spawn area.  It allowed me to block out the chaos of people running all over the place around me, of spawning bunnies, and so forth.  I also put away my own bunny pet after she had had her little love connection in each area, because when I did not, bunnies were jumping around having baby bunnies all over the place.  Once I cut down on the visual noise, I could be less attentive, for any movement on my screen could pretty much only be the spawn of an egg.  I held my cursor over where the egg would spawn, and right clicked the second the pointing finger turned to a gear shift.  I stymied many a potential egg stealer in this way, by being patient, still, and quick to react.

Also, open your eggs as you go.  There is always a break of some seconds at least between spawns at the same point, and you might as well spend some of that time opening the eggs, which you will have to do, anyway.  You never know… something you are waiting for might be inside one of them.  If you don’t open them, you might just go right on gathering eggs for longer than you actually needed to!  The horror!

Finally, I took breaks.  When the monotony of egg camping became too much for me, I’d go off to do another part of the achievments, hiding an egg in Stormwind or gathering a group of guildies to go to Un’Goro to lay eggs at the hotsprings.  I would recommend spacing out the achievements of the holiday so that you can punctuate your egg watch with some of the fun silliness that is also part of Noblegarden.

I’m now really happy to have accomplished everything that I needed to for the holiday in one day.  There is a chance that I might go back to do the daily a couple of times to see if I can’t get that elegant dress out of an egg for that last achievement.  I would not say that the egg sitting was the best time I’ve spent in the game.  However, I was able to get through it very well, sanity in tact, by approaching the task as I have described.  Best of luck!  Now that I’ve gotten all of my eggs, the field is all yours!

Last night my guild tried out the new Vault of Archavon boss on 25 man for as long as we could before the next Battle for Wintergrasp began.  It was a bumpy ride.  Hardly any of our addons were working, there were disconnections, and I think most of us had a big case of the nerves because of the big changes to our classes.  Of course, none of these problems held a candle to the biggie… we had no idea what to expect.  There were no slick guides or comprehensive videos out there for this fella.  We did find some scraps of info on him, but we couldn’t even count on them being current, since changes from the PTR to live servers are common.  This got me to thinking.  What are the best things a guild can do to be successful “raiding blind”?

Unless you want to sit back for a bit and wait for others to forge a path before you, you’ll need some strategies for working through content without the knowledge base of others who have gone before you.  Here is some advice I have on how to make the experience more enjoyable, tolerable, and hopefully successful.

1)  Hope for the best, expect the worst.  If you are expecting to walk into a brand new, untested encounter and have no problems, or minor problems, you may have a success or two, but inevitably you are going to run into a boss or a game mechanic that will stump and frustrate you to no end.  When you become frustrated, you lose focus, decreasing your chances for success.  When a boss encounter is causing a wipe fest, do whatever you need to in order to abate your frustration, even if it means walking away from the encounter and saving it for another day.

2)  Stock up.  Progression content always requires more consumables as you learn the fight than farm content.  This goes double for brand new progression content.  You should expect many wipes, which cause lots of down time.  You can reduce that down time if you, and your guild generally, come over-prepared to handle raid damage with bots, rebuffs with reagents, and an overabundance of things like mana and health potions, buff flasks, raid food, etc.

3)  Be a tenacious researcher.  Sometimes you can find scraps of information out there about a boss, even at the very infancy of that boss’s existence in the game, if you are a persistent enough researcher.  This advice assumes that you don’t necessarily want to figure it all out on your own.  Check your usual sources for information, but then go further.  Do creative googling.  Do term searches at big sites like mmo-champion and WOW Insider to see if there might be posts that mention the boss that missed the attention of the googlebots.  Look through the WOW Official forum for the PTR to see if you can pick up clues there.

4) Survey the terrain.  Look very carefully around the boss area.  Examine the room layout for possible advantages or features that might help.  Investigate unusual features.  If a gear wheel pops up when you mouse over something in a boss room, chances are that that item is somehow instrumental in the fight.  Neutral or friendly NPCs might help you or might need your help. 

5)  Watch the boss’s and NPCs’ buffs and debuffs, as well as your own.  Keep an eye on the buffs and debuffs that show up for the boss and yourself.  Make a mental note of what they are, so that even if the attempt is a wipe you can speak up afterwards and have a discussion with your raid mates about what might have caused these buffs/debuffs; what their effects seemed to be; and possible strategies for either a) maximizing their benefit, or b) minimizing their damage.

6) Keep track of environmental changes.  Keep your eye out for changes on the floor (like the black, damage dealing pancakes around Lady B in 4 Horsemen), around your character (like the swirling red that surrounds you on Kel in Naxx or on the Drakes in Sarth), and from above (like the blizzards on Sapph.)  If environmental changes seem to be harming you (which they do the majority of the time), move out of them.  On the other hand, if they seem to be buffing you, let everyone know and try to maximize their benefit on future attempts.  Obvious?  Yes.  Worth a reminder?  Yes, again.

7)  Parse wipes.  If the raid wipes, don’t just go stampeding back to smack your head against the same brick wall without analysis.  Have a look at your combat logs.  Find out what killed you.  Have a little chat about what the mechanics seemed to be that made you take the damage that killed you.  Come up with a strategy for the next try based upon your discussion.

8)  Pay special attention after a boss emote.  Even if you have no idea what a boss emote might mean, it is still a clue that something significant is coming in the fight.  Try to assess what the impact was so that you can either avoid it or use it to your advantage the next time around.

9) Watch the boss’s cast bar.  Sometimes the worst boss abilities can be interrupted or avoided, but only when you see them coming. 

10)  Be flexible.  Try out different strategies as you work on downing a boss, and don’t be afraid to go back to one that seemed to work better than the course you’re on at the moment.

11) Communicate.  Talk to one another in vent.  Suggest strategies.  Speak up if you know why something went wrong.  Bring an extra dose of patience for your raid mates, as this kind of gaming can be frustrating and people (yourself included) may not be at their best after several wipes.

12) Remember your history.  There really are only a limited number of ways that developers can add challenges to a boss fight.  Sometimes they invent something unseen, but the majority of the time boss abilities are new iterations of boss abilities you have seen before.  If a boss has an ability that you recognize from elsewhere, let your raidmates know.  They may remember the fight that you are talking about and adjust more easily than if you just tried to describe what you think the ability’s effects are.

13) Redefine success.  Even if you don’t get a boss down, if you reduce his health more than you did on the last run, if you make it into a new phase, if you carry on the fight longer than before, if you learn one little piece of potentially helpful information, that is a success!  Each small improvement will move you toward the ultimate goal of downing the boss.

14)  Use the tried and true.  A new boss fight is not necessarily the best place to try out a whole new UI configuration, for example.  It is much better if you can be sailing on a tight ship, where spells are accessible to you by muscle memory alone, your information is accessible to you just where it always is, the only thing new is the encounter.

15) Know when to walk away.  Sometimes you just need some time to let the information coming in percolate, some time to think.  If you are hitting an emotional wall, take a break of 5 minutes, 5 hours, or 5 days.  Come back refreshed, having assessed the encounter in a less stressful environment.

I know that I will be trying to bring all of this advice to my own game in the next couple of weeks.  My guild is not a bleeding edge guild, so I have no doubt that by the time we reach several bosses into Ulduar there will already be the kind of guides posted that actually make boss encounters much more accessible.  In the meantime, however, it is fun to be tackling the unknown.  Best of luck out there!

If you take a little meander about the official forums, you’ll certainly find many a resto druid lamenting the changes to come in Patch 3.1 to our lovely little Lifebloom, and casting aspersions upon Nourish, which has received multiple buffs since its inception as Blizzard works to make it more and more attractive.  Whether you love it or hate it, though, ignore it in 3.1 to the likely detriment of your best possible healing.  So… how do you make the most of it?

Before I move into the explanation of the various ways to buff Nourish, I’d like to note that I am in no way suggesting that a player focus every decision about their build, gear, and playing style to buff this one spell.  One of the beauties of playing a Restoration Druid is having such a rich aresenal of healing spells and capabilities on which to draw.  It would be ludicrous to buff one to the detriment of all others.  My intent here is to provide a comprehensive list of all of the possible ways that one CAN buff Nourish, hoping that others will then be able to pick and choose wisely from this list the ways in which they, personally, will work to strengthen this spell if doing so is important to them.

Disclaimer out of the way.  On with the post.

Stats

Almost all of the stats that show up on Resto gear will affect Nourish in one way or another.  Some, obviously, are of more importance than others.   However, let’s give them all a once over to better understand their relationship to this spell.  Knowing how your gear choices specifically affect this spell will help you to make good decisions in terms of how best to buff it.

Spirit – Spirit for us Trees is most significantly tied to our mana regeneration, which affects Nourish only insomuch as it may increase the number of times you are able to cast it without going out of mana.  However, if you have talented fully into Improved Tree of Life, your spell power will be buffed by 15% of your spirit,  making the healing of all of your spells, including Nourish, stronger.

Intellect – Intellect makes our mana pool larger, again just increasing the number of spells, including Nourish, that we can cast before running out of mana.  In addition, however, one point of Intellect improves our chance for our heals to critically strike by .006%.  Nourish is one of our spells that is capable of critically striking.

Spell Power – Spell power increases the effect of spells, so that the more spell power on your gear, the greater your heals, including Nourish, will be.  Nourish, when cast by a Druid with no talents to improve it, has a Spell Power co-efficient of .671, whereas with Master Shapeshifter, Gift of Nature, Improved Rejuvenation, Empowered Touch, Empowered Rejuvenation, Genesis and Tree of Life active, the coefficient climbs to .814 (see section on talents).

Critical Strike – Nourish is one of the Resto spells that is capable of a critical strike.  Spell critical strikes increase the healing of an untalented Nourish by 150%.  45.91 critical strike rating increases your chance your spells critically hit by 1%.  Therefore, stacking critical strike rating will improve the chance that your Nourish heals for 150%, rather than 100%.

Note:  In addition to the increased healing of Nourish itself, a critical striking Nourish, if a Druid has specced into Living Seed, has between a 33% and 100% chance of proccing a Living Seed based upon how many points are spent on the Living Seed talent.  The Living Seed will deliver healing equal to 30% of the critical strike Nourish the next time the target takes damage within 15 seconds.  In 3.1, this 30% will include any amount overhealed by the critically striking Nourish.

Haste – Spell Haste on gear acts in two ways.  First, it reduces the global cooldown between casting spells from the standard 1.5 seconds to a minimum of 1 second.  In addition, it reduces the cast time of spells.  Druids who have 5/5 points in Gift of the Earth Mother currently need 655 haste rating, or 19.98%, to reduce their global cooldown on certain instant cast spells to 1 second.   Once Druids have reached this “soft cap” of haste to where their global cooldown is reduced to one second, the stat does not scale well, so it is agreed that they generally should not stack haste past this point.  This whole explanation is to say that Nourish can be cast more quickly and more often the closer a Tree gets to reaching the Haste soft cap.

Talents

I am not including a full discussion of each talent here, just noting how each listed talent will buff Nourish.

Restoration Talents:

Improved Mark of the Wild - Improving all your attributes by 1-2% when buffed with MOW or GOW will have obvious positive effects on all of your spells, including Nourish.

Nature’s Focus – Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Nourish by 23/46/70%.  Basically, this makes it easier to get your Nourish cast off while taking damage.

Subtlety – Reduces the threat generated by Nourish and other Resto spells by 10/20/30%.  Not a huge buff, as healer aggro is largely a thing of the past in WOLK, but a buff just the same.

Master Shapeshifter – Increases all of your healing by 2/4%.

Tranquil Spirit – Reduces the mana cost of Nourish by 2/4/6/8/10%.

Improved Rejuvenation – this talent actually does not buff Nourish in any way.  However, it is a prerequisite for Nature’s Bounty, which does.

Nature’s Swiftness – can turn a Nourish into an instant cast spell in an emergency.  3 minute cooldown.

Gift of Nature – increases healing of all spells by 2/4/6/8/10%.

Nature’s Bounty – increases the critical strike chance of Nourish by 5/10/15/20/25%.

Natural Perfection – increases the critical strike chance of Nourish by 1/2/3%.

Living Seed – gives a Nourish critical strike a 33/66/100% chance to plant a living seed on the target, which will heal for 30% of the critical strike Nourish the next time the target is hit within 15 seconds.

Empowered Rejuvenation – Does not buff Nourish, but is a prerequisite for Tree of Life form and Improved Tree of Life form, which do.

Tree of Life form – Improves healing received by your self/party/raid by 6%, including when healed with, you guessed it, Nourish.

Improved Tree of Life form – Increases your healing spell power by 5/10/15%.

Balance Talents:

Moonglow – Reduces the mana cost of Nourish by 3/6/9%.

Nature’s Majesty – Increases the critical strike chance of Nourish by 2/4%.

Nature’s Grace – Nourish critical strikes will have a 33/66/100% chance of increasing your spell casting speed by 20% for 3 seconds.

Gear

Gear that buffs Nourish should, obviously, be buit around the stats previously discussed in this post.  Stat stacking for Nourish could follow a number of hierarchies depending in which way you want to buff the spell (i.e. mana regen, healing power, critical strike chance, spell casting time).  In my own estimation, were I stacking stats to buff Nourish, I would probably follow the hierarchy of:

5) spirit
4) haste
3) intellect
4) crit
5) spell power.

That hierarcy is, of course, debatable.  There is one gear attribute currently available in the game outside of the regular stats that can be found on gear that offers a buff to Nourish.  The 4 piece T7 set bonus offers a 5% bonus to the healing of Nourish for every HoT that is currently up on the target.  Because of this bonus, my recommendation is to pick up all five pieces of T7 or T7.5 gear if you can get them, so that you can swap out items with upgrades from Ulduar while still holding onto this bonus as long as possible if your goal is to fully buff Nourish.

Glyphs

In 3.1 the Glyph of Nourish will become available.  This Glyph will heal an additional 6% for each HoT currently on the target.  Stacking this Glyph with the T7 4pc. bonus will make Nourish an incredibly efficient spell for you as you work on replacing your T7 gear with T8 gear.  Once you’ve gotten your T8 set, you can still rely on this Glyph to make your Nourish spell work incredibly well in tandem with your HoTs.

Enchants

Your best bets for improving Nourish in terms of your enchants are to find enchants that increase spell power and crit rating.  It may not be in your best interests to use your enchant slots in this way in terms of other considerations that will become more important in 3.1, however, such as mana regen and conservation.  However, should you have these other areas under control, you might turn to the following, which represent the best chance per slot to buff Nourish with enchants:

*List excludes profession specific enchants

Head -

Arcanum of Burning Mysteries – Kirin Tor (revered) – +30 spell power, +20 critical strike rating
Arcanum of Blissful Mending – Kirin Tor (revered) – +30 spell power, +8 mp5

Shoulders -

Greater Inscription of the Storm – Hodir (revered) – +24 spell power, +15 critical strike rating
Greater Inscription of the Crag – Hodir (revered) – +24 spell power, +6 mp5

Chest -

Powerful Stats – +10 to all stats

Bracers -

Greater Stats – +6 to all stats

Gloves -

Exceptional Spellpower – +28 spell power

Legs -

Brilliant Spellthread – +50 spell power, +20 spirit

Feet -

Icewalker – +12 critical strike rating, +12 hit rating (yes, the +hit is a total waste here.  However, this is the only boot enchant that includes an attribute that would buff the performance of Nourish, so I included it, anyway.)

Weapon -

Mighty Spellpower – +63 spell power

Gems

The gems that can best help to improve Nourish’s performance are as follows:

Runed red gems – +spell power
Smooth yellow gems – +crit
Quick yellow gems – +haste
Reckless orange gems – +spell power and haste
Potent orange gems – spell power and crit
Royal purple gems – +spell power and mp5
Purified purple gems – +spell power and spirit
Sundered green gems – +crit and mp5
Misty green gems – +crit and spirit

Consumables

You can also buff Nourish temporarily with consumables.  Although improving your critical strike chance would buff Nourish, and thus I’ve included those foods here, I’d caution against choosing crit over spell power buff foods, as crit will buff a limited number of your spells, whereas spell power will buff all of them.

Spellpower Foods
Firecracker Salmon+46 Spell Power, +40 Stamina
Fish Feast +80 AP, +46 Spell Power, +40 Stamina
Great Feast +60 AP, +35 Spell Power, +40 Stamina
Shoveltusk Seak +35 Spell Power, +30 Stamina
Smoked Salmon +35 Spell Power, +40 Stamina
Tender Shoveltusk Steak +46 Spell Power, +40 Stamina

Critical Strike Food
Poached Nettlefish +30 Critical Strike Rating, +40 Stamina 
Spiced Wyrm Burger +40 Critical Strike Rating, +40 Stamina
Spicy Blue Nettlefish +40 Critical Strike Rating, +40 Stamina
Succulent Orca Stew +30 Critical Strike Rating, +30 Stamina
Wyrm Delight +30 Critical Strike Rating, +30 Stamina

Flasks
Flask of the Frost Wyrm – 125 spellpower

Elixirs
Spellpower Elixir – 58 spellpower (battle elixir)

Healing Style

Arguably, the strongest means by which you can buff your Nourish spell post patch 3.1 is with your playing style.  The spell, unbuffed or talented, automatically heals for 20% more if there is any HoT active on the target.  Keep this in mind as you heal now, and practice when you can incorporating this knowledge into your playstyle.  If someone has taken damage, and there is a possibility that they will take more, try throwing out a one stack Lifebloom on them followed up by a Nourish, rather than just going straight to the Nourish spell.  If you have or intend to have the T7 4pc set bonus and/or the Nourish Glyph post 3.1, try stacking up an array of HoTs on your tank now and polishing him off with a Nourish when you see spike damage.  You will not yet get the full benefits of doing so, but working on the playstyle now will only make you stronger when 3.1 comes. 

You can also do things to make Nourish more accessible.  Move it to a prime place on your casting bar so that you remember it.  Assign it to one of your primary mouse keys if you use Grid or Healbot (I recently switched Healing Touch from right click to shift+right click, and moved Nourish from shift +right click to right click to make it an easier spell to cast).

Consider topping off raid members with a Nourish rather than a HoT if time permits.

Do whatever you can now to move this spell forward in your rotation and in your consciousness so that the learning curve will be less steep in terms of incorporating it once it becomes the new go-to spell in 3.1.

I’llclose by again saying that I am certainly not advocating every possible buff for Nourish, even though I’ve tried to list them all inclusively here.  What I’d recommend, instead, is careful consideration of the improved weight and attraction of this spell, and judicious choices amongst these many possibilities for strengthening it in order to help it strike a healthy balance in your new iteration as of 3.1.

I recently wrote a guide for a Resto Druid’s first raid, which many people seemed to find useful, leaving me very happy!  One reader, Mooriah, asked if I could write a post giving some tips for raiding Naxxramas.  I considered writing a long post about raid healing generally, but that ground has been covered well by bloggers like Dave at Passport to Shandris, who recently wrote an excellent guide for single target healing, and one for raid healing for trees.  Please do give these a read, as they are excellent resources!  Because such good work has already been done in that arena, I thought I would do a quick run through of the bosses in Naxx, giving some advice about what a Restoration Druid should know about, and brings to each boss encounter.

First, this guide can in no way replace dilligent research about the Naxxramas bosses.  To be a good raider, unless you’re on the bleeding edge of content and trying things out on the PTR, or are willing to pay high repair bills so that you can see content without spoilers, you should read up on raid strategies at sites like TankSpot.com and WOWwiki.com before raiding.  I don’t have the attention span to do a full run through of each boss, outlining full abilities and raid strategy, and you wouldn’t want me to try.  Trust me on that one.  I’ll go forward on the assumption that you have done a bit of reading up on the bosses and watched some videos, and will tailor my conversation on that assumption.

That being said, on with the tree tips!

Spider Wing

Anub’Rekhan- On this boss, druids can shine as tank healers during the Locust Swarm phase because of our ability to cast “on the fly.”  The trick here is to stay close enough that you are in range of the tank to heal her as she kites the bug, but far enough away that you do not get silenced.  While moving backwards.  And casting.  Wheeeeee!  =)  I made a diagram that amuses me to no end to show you where I place myself for this section of the fight. 

The tank should be kiting the bug around the outer edge of the room.  If you stay about mid-way between that outer edge and the edge of the green circle in the center of the room, moving backwards around the circle, your speed should roughly match that of the tank so that you are neither moving out of range nor risking the bug getting too close to you and silencing you.  Then you can keep casting your instant cast hots so that the tank has a buffer at the end of the locust swarm.  The way I move on this fight is to face the tank, hold down my “s” key so that I am moving backwards, use my right mouse key to control my direction, and cast spells using the mouse and healbot as needed.  It took some practice to get it down, but once you do you’ll be a GREAT help on this fight!

Grand Widow Faerlina - My strategy for this fight doesn’t have a lot of druid specific details, but I do have a couple of tips.  Make sure you load up the tank with HoTs if you are on tank heals right before the Frenzy, then unload big, quick heals (NS + HT,  RJ + SM) once the frenzy hits until the raid gets the frenzy under control.  Keep an eye out for Poison Volleys that you can dispel.

Maexxna - This fight is another opportunity for us Trees to really shine as tank healers.  Focus on the tank exclusively.  The raid damage on this fight is low and can be handled by others.  Your job is to keep a full compliment of HoTs on the tank throughout the fight, as well as Abolish Poison.  This spell, or a quick trigger finger on Dispel Poison, is just crucial for this fight because Necrotic Poison will pretty much do your tank in if not taken care of immediately.  (Dispel Poison might become the preferred method after patch 3.1, as the tick time for Abolish poison will be increased to 3 seconds up from 2.  A tank can take a lot of damage in 3 seconds, and when heals are reduced by 90% on him due to poison, 3 seconds is a long time).  If you do go with Dispel Poison, add an Abolish Poison prior to each Web Spray, as the boss can cast Necrotic Poison while everyone is incapacitated by Web Spray.  You can tell a Web Spray is coming when the boss spawns spiderlings.

Plague Wing

Noth the Plaguebringer – I really, really can’t think of any Druid specific details for this fight.  Heal your target.  Stay stacked up on the rest of the raid.  Collect fat lewtz. 

Heigan the Unclean – On this boss, us Druids can do quite a bit to keep the raid up if we, ourselves, are masters of the Dance Dance Revolution portion of the entertainment here.  Once you have the dance down, you can throw out some Wild Growths, Rejuvenates, and Lifeblooms on raid members who have compromised health as you move through the dance.  However, I would NOT try this until you’re confident about your ability to do the dance and have done it successfully several times.  This boss does so little damage on his own that he can basically be brought down by one tank, one healer, and one dps if necessary.  It would take forever, but it can be done.  Because of this, it is crucial that at least one of each class role stays on their feet through the fight.  You healing raidmates during the dance will help to defeat the boss faster if you are successful.  If you are not successful and you die, it may just be wipe city for that attempt.

Loatheb – Earlier this month I wrote a post about what a ginormous pain in the heiny this boss is for me.  While I am getting better at it, it is because I have followed the advice left in the comments on my post from people who have stopped by this site.  Therefore, rather than type up my own strategy here, I am going to refer you to the comments in the post about Loatheb for some really excellent strategies.  =)  See how I did that?  Thanks again SO much to the readers who gave advice there.

Military (Death Knight) Wing

Instructor Razuvious – My best advice on this one is to set up a couple of macros in advance to have on hand for healing the understudy pets while the priests use them to tank Razuvious.  I use the following two macros for this fight:

/assist Instructor Razuvious
/cast <Regrowth>

/assist Instructor Razuvious
/cast <Rejuvenate>

This allows me to target Razuvious, hit these macros, and it will automatically heal Razuvious’s target, the understudies.  I use XPerl Raid Frames, by the way, and this addon lets me see my target’s target, so I know how the Understudy’s health is before casting these, and can also see the HoTs ticking on them.

Gothik the Harvester – This is another fairly straightforward fight from a healing perspective, with no special tricks I can think of for trees.  Don’t waste mana early on.  Heal your target.  =)

The Four Horsemen – This is a complex fight with a lot going on.  Tips here depend upon what your healing assignment is.  If you are in the front of a room and assigned tank healing, all the regular advice for tank healing applies as you move through the fight strategy.  If you are in the back of the room healing, your mobility is going to be key here.  Keep an eye on your debuffs.  When I get 3 it’s time for me to move out of range and to the other side, because the 4th Mark from Zeliek on 25 man Naxx is enough to do me in.  Keep on your toes and don’t forget to take your eyes off the health bars with frequency so that you don’t die in a black pancake of death on Lady B’s side.  Heal on the move.  You were born for it.  =)

The Abomination Wing

Patchwerk – This fight brings VERY high damage to the tanks.  The good news is that the tanks are the only people you need to heal if this fight goes like it’s supposed to.  Load up your target with full HoTs and have your instant cast big heals (NS + HT, RJ + SM) on the ready. 

Grobbulus - Try to keep everyone topped off on this fight.  One little tip that I try to work in is when someone (read squishy DPS/Healer type) gets a mutating injection cast on them, if I have breathing room in what I’m doing in terms of my healing assignment, I will throw a LB or a Rejuv on the squishy before they run out of range to drop off their debuff poison cloud.  The HoT will help them to survive the damage that comes as the debuff drops off.

Gluth – I am always chosen by my healing leads to heal the tanks on this fight, so I can’t say too much about healing the kiters.  In terms of healing the tanks, if they are not saying in vent when they are about to taunt, train them.  I find that little bits of raw meat for treats are great for training tanks.  If they tell you a couple of seconds IN ADVANCE of when they will be trading off the aggro on the boss, you can switch to the tank who will be soon getting all the aggro and load up the HoTs before they pull, while your other HoTs continue to wind down on the other tank until the aggro is pulled off of him.  Try to have full HoTs up when decimate hits, then cast big heals until the tank is up, heal yourself a bit, then WG the raid.

Thaddius – I always try to make sure that the tanks are loaded up with HoTs on this fight during phase 1 (Stalagg & Feugen) right before they get tossed over to the other side.  In essence, I’m buffering them until the healers on the other side catch their stride with the new tank to heal.  Phase 2 there are no special healing tricks necessarily, although it is nice to be able to heal on the move if needed during the polarity shifts.

Frostwyrm Lair

Sapphiron – For this fight I’d recommend installing and becoming familiar with a de-cursing addon such as Decursive or Smart Debuff.  It is critical that when the boss casts Life Drain, everyone who can decurse (this means you =) ) must get on that job as quickly as possible, both to prevent deaths in the raid and to keep the dragon from gaining back health that the raid is working so hard to take away from it.  If you are on tank heals, keep up your full compliment of HoTs as much as possible during phase 1, supplementing as needed with direct heals.  At the end of phase 2 throw out a WG or 2 if you can to help out those healing the raid.

Kel’thuzad – For this fight, conserve mana as much as possible during phase 1.  During phase 2, keep everyone topped off.  On the Frost Blasts, even if I am assigned to tank heals I try to toss an instant HoT on any raid member near me who gets hit, to help them through the 105% damage, then let the raid healers top them off.  I also try to keep a HoT up on myself throughout phase 2 in case I am the one Frost Blasted, just to make sure I stay on my feet.  Overhealing?  Sure.  Wipe Prevention?  Quite possibly.  I always have my Cyclone spell at the ready on this fight to neutralize raid members who get mind controlled.  Keep lively so that you can move immediately out of a shadow fissure if one is cast on you.  These take very little time to kill a tree.

Wrapping Up

Naxx, as many have said, is a raid dungeon that is tuned toward the easier side of raiding, and is a great place to start to learn the mechanics (both game mechanics and group mechanics) of raiding.  It offers many ways for you to shine as a Restoration Druid.  You bring a lot that is unique and of value to these encounters.  Hopefully this guide will help you to make it through with ease and fun.  Enjoy!