At that time, the guild I was a member of was raiding Molten Core, and was working on Onyxia. Unlike today, there were not that many youtube videos, strategy websites and blogs depicting the fights from every possible angle. Instead, you had to rely on strats as they became available on bosskillers.com(sometimes months after a first kill, since guilds were much more secretive those days), and the explanations of your raid leader. That meant that, as a fresh level 60, you were somewhat clueless about what was going to happen. (that’s an excuse that I will keep sticking to, by the way)

So here I am, a warlock in blue gear, with about 20(if that) extra spellpower, fully buffed and ready to do battle with my first raid dragon. Of course, because I have no idea of what to expect, I’m also constantly repeating the words “Please don’t let me fuck up” in my head.

I listen to the explanation the raid leader gives, and the main tank pulls. I dot, shadowbolt, run around aimlessly; I watch in amazement as tiny whelps spawn from the side caves, only to die to aoe. I also watch in amazement as I’m feared, and running around through the cave, while lava bursts from the cracks in the ground.

One thing I should mention, at this point, is that this was looking like the best try they’d ever had, and that it seemed very likely we’d get a first kill. The raid leader’s asking us to focus over vent, so I dot some more. And shadowbolt! And…get feared again. At this point, I’m already a veteran. I know how that works. Nothing can surprise me. I’ll just run around for a bit in directions I can’t control, and the healers will heal me and then I’ll dot some more and shadowb…wait. Why am I running towards her? Hmm, her tail moved. I’m like…thrown in the air now? Wow, I think I’m messing up. Now I landed in that little cave whelps are coming from. Loaaaaaaaaads of little eggs here! Looks kind of like that scene from Alien! I’d better run out. Why are there more spawning? I’m definitely fucking up. WHY ARE THEY YELLING AT ME ON VENTRILO?

So yes. I wiped the whole group. On my first raid ever, on what looked to be their best try ever. We killed her the next try, though, so I was forgiven, and stopped making catastrophic mistakes every raid. Over the years, I have ended up in this highly successful and enviable position where I get to yell at people, try and lead a moderately successful guild without letting my guild mates realise I’m so so bad, and cry at night. While blogging.

Anecdotes aside, though, the point I am trying to make is that mistakes happen. Especially during your first few raids. You’re likely to mess up, or be overwhelmed by everything that’s happening at once. The main things to remember are that you should be prepared. Strategies and tips are available everywhere, on websites, your own guild’s forums, and blogs like Zing’s. You have no excuse to not read up. And if you do make a mistake, admit it. People will appreciate you for it.

And don’t forget: once you do eventually mess up, try and learn from it. Don’t make the same mistake again. Think of how you could have avoided that situation, stayed alive a moment longer, or moved out of the fire faster. Or not spread tombs during phase 2 of hardmode Sindragosa. What horrible horrible scrub does that kind of mistake?

me. last night.

At first, I was using the usual bar timers that everybody else was swearing by. Then, at some point in 2008, I stumbled upon an addon that, to me at least, seemed like the perfect solution to debuff management: Event Horizon.

The difference between this and most other debuff trackers is that it uses a different mechanism to show you, at a glance, the status of your debuffs. As pictures always are better than long-winded explanations, I’ll attach the picture provided by the author on the addon’s page:

That particular image shows debuff tracking for a shadow priest. As you can see, the addon consists of a series of bars arranged in rows, and a vertical white line. That line acts as the indicator for the “current time”. Anything to the right of the white line is going to happen within the next(you can specify the duration) few seconds.

What the addon does is take all the dots and cooldowns you would normally use as part of your rotation, and then display a grey horizontal bar showing you for how long that debuff will be on your target. It will also show you your current casting spell(the green bars), while taking into consideration your levels of haste. With practice, this allows for a much better refreshing of dots, and for an intuitive approach to tracking.

The addon is also highly customisable. By default, it should work for every class and every spec(even healers, but your grid should be configured for that, rendering this addon useless for that particular role). However, it is also highly customisable, if you’re not afraid of a little lua editing. In its current incarnation, it even tracks trinkets that have stacking effects, like Eye of the Broodmother.

This addon has been part of my ui ever since I first tried it, and I would urge every dotting class that looks for a new way to manage their debuffs to give it a try. You can download it here.

As a small disclaimer, since I do not have Beta access currently, the comments are based on the information available to me. If some of my assumptions are wrong, I humbly apologise and will correct any errors I’m made aware of.

1. Balance

With things as they are right now, a 32/0/5 (+4) build seems like the logical choice. The remaining 5 points will be distributed according to preference, with some strong contenders being:

• Owlkin Frenzy:attacks done to you while in Moonkin form have a 5/10/15% chance to cause you to go into a Frenzy, increasing your damage by 10%, cause you to be immune to pushback while casting Balance spells. Lasts 10 seconds.
  During WOTLK, this talent has been affected by inconsistency. Initially, it would proc from any attack that hit the druid – including environmental damage, aoe, and hits by adds. In following patches, it was changed to not do so on a per fight basis – thus being reduced to a mostly pvp talent. The potential is immense – if, in Cataclysm, it is returned to its initial state, and procs from any successful attacks, it would make for a significant dps boost for a raiding Balance druid. However, having to test whether the aoe during every single boss fight would proc Owlkin Frenzy does strike me as a waste of time.
• Solar Beam: you summon a beam of solar light over the enemy target’s location, interrupting the enemy target and silencing all enemy targets under the beam within 10 yards while it is active. Lasts for 10 seconds.
  In its current incarnation, this is purely a pvp talent(and a mediocre one at that). While a targeted aoe silence does sound useful at first glance, the long cooldown and the fact that it does not lock the school of the spell being cast make it situational at best. I would personally love to see a damage component added, the cooldown lowered or a spell lock added(or, alternatively, the range being made wider than 10 yards, so the time the target spends running is equal to the time they’d be silenced from a counterspell, from example).
  Of course, I would be happy to see a boss fight with multiple adds that need to be silenced at once, where this particular spell would be extremely useful. Time will tell.
• Natural Shapeshifter: reduces the cost of all shapeshifting by 30%
  Again, this is a very situational(and, I assume, not used enough to reap any significant rewards) talent. I can’t think of any case in which we would need to change forms during a fight. Unless, of course, Blizzard decides to make me eat my words by introducing a fight with lots of frost novas, roots and any other snares.

2. Restoration

The build I came up with is a 8/0/32(+1) build. That one point baffles me at the moment, simply because none of the talents it would go into would potentially bring any benefit during raids.

As a very cursory first impression, I have to say that, even though the trees have been pruned, they still look very fleshed out. There are talents that buff important spells and give us new mechanics to work with. They bring a palpable benefit to the player, regardless of play style or experience. As I’ve said before, whether these (so far) exciting changes will be received positively or not will depend mostly on how well Blizzard implements the core mechanics of the specs – Eclipse and Tree of Life.

Dungeon Difficulty and Rewards
10- and 25-player (normal difficulty) — Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop the exact same items as each other.
10- and 25-player (Heroic difficulty) — Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop more powerful versions of the normal-difficulty items.

This, of course, means that now 10-man guilds and raiders will have access to their best in slot items, just like their 25-man counterparts. Which, in turn, means that the casters in my guild won’t have to sigh over Dislodged Foreign Object, and will instead be able to equip whichever uber-trinket Cataclysm introduces(after the guild master gets it, of course:) ).

I also have to give myself a small pat on the back. In one of my previous posts, I suggested that all the gradual changes within the distribution of items in 25 and 10 man raids suggests that Blizzard are trying to make 10 man raiding, if not the preferred alternative, then at least one that is every bit as appealing as 25 man raiding. This trend continues with this latest change.

Personally, I am looking forward to Cataclysm. The guild leveling system, the 31-point talent trees and items being made available in both raid sizes(while the raid sizes themselves being made exclusive) are all signs that point out that the 10-man raiding experience will get even more enjoyable.

Indeed, this has been a problem with most classes. In all specs, there are either talents that are deemed absolutely necessary(and that everybody takes), or talents that need to be taken to reach the following tier. Either way, the end result is that, rather than providing more than one viable alternative, all classes have a clearly defined spec, with any deviation from the norm being quantified as a dps loss.

Judging by the current state of the trees, I’m expecting to have a few viable options in a spec. While looking at the balance tree, one can see several options, depending on what your poison is. Of course, some talents have left me quite bewildered. In their current incarnations, there is still a clear distinction made between pve and pvp talents, in all trees. However, there seem to be clear options allowing builds focused on pve, pvp, or a mix of the two.

With 41 available talent points in total, I find it quite likely that the builds will require 31 points in your main tree, with the other 10 spread in a second. The lower tier talents seem quite specifically designed to be attractive for all specs, since they generally buff the main abilities of feral, resto and balance druids. As such, I’d expect a multitude of possible specs(balance with points in feral or balance with points in resto, anyone?), all remaining to be decided based on glyphs and talent synergy.

All that remains to be seen is how Eclipse(and to a lesser extent, Tree of Life) will be changed. The mechanics should be core parts of their respective specs, and seeing the final implementations will be the only way to tell whether Cataclysm is something druids should be excited about.

As you can probably notice from my armory, I am running a pretty standard 11/0/60 resto spec. I have decided to spec that for several reasons:

My glyph choices are, I hope, quite obvious. My major glyphs are:

So, we killed Sindragosa tonight. Hopefully the Lich King should die by the end of next week, which means we can get started on the hard modes. Sucks that we’re a bit late, but I couldn’t really help it. Onward, McDuff!

I am currently playing a druid. She heals and has a balance offspec, and I am quite surprised at realising I like the playstyle very much. So from now on, I will probably ramble about the issues, quirks and nuances of resto/balance druids. I hope you enjoy it.

The advantages are more flexibility with raid times, knowing that if somebody fucks up once they probably won’t do it again, and also knowing that all the people in your raid want to be there and progress. Not to mention raiding without being stressed is fucking fun.

We got Starcaller down, cleared Trial of the Champion in 10-man heroic mode, and our future goals are Yogg+0 and Tribute to Insanity.

As a side note…I’ve upgraded some items, and I just don’t get it. The trinkets are itemized terribly: Talisman of Volatile Power compared to Flare of the Heavens or even Dying Curse. It has a higher item level, but it provides less of an upgrade than a trinket 45 item levels lower?
So in conclusion…I keep upgrading gear, but I end up having the same spell power and losing haste. I like haste. Lots of haste. Yummy pretty awesome haste. Haste haste haste.

Also, I (or actually we)’ll try and start a series of guides for the Ulduar hard modes, Algalon and TotC hardmodes. Stay tuned.

All in all, blizzcon raised almost as many new questions as it answered. I’m looking forward to the new guild leveling mechanics, to worgens and to flying around in the old world(speaking of that, I’ll have a guide for getting a cool mount coming up soon).

Bring on the cataclysm!!!