I know I am doing this in reverse, But I just did this one and its fresh on my mind.

This is hands down the toughest 5 man I have ever done. The trash in 232 to 245 gear is no joke. I had some good dps with me, and it wasn't fun. 5 pulls them the boss, 5 pulls then another boss. Then you have, a mob with a kinda shadow ability. Then you have to go through about 5 or 6 ice blocks, being chased by the lich king. As Jayna tries to save your sorry asses. It is quite frankly a pain in the butt.

First you will need 3 very good dps, range is awesome, and a DK is wonderful if you can get on vent with them. Death grip to me in this place is amazing to get some of those casters pulled to you. Counter-spell, silencing shot. Everything to get a caster come close for you to swipe, you will need it. I can't stress enough how amazing your healer needs to be. If your healer isn't over geared or talented, don't try it.



Part 1

It is my opinon the first 5 pulls go from easy to hard, on the last one use Whatever you need to stay alive, as early as you can. You want it up for the boss fight. Try FFF the casters, doing as I said up there, getting things pulled close to you. We use the hole straight across from where you enter, works for me. Do as much as you can, Never come off swipe, Use beserk on the 5th wave. Innervate the healer between 5th wave and boss, and whenever else you can. If anyone dies, kill quite a bit of guys, tell the healer to over heal you, tap barkskin and then battle rez. Remember to try and tap every guy you can with something, get them close, lots of swiping, and don't let them get behind you where you can't dodge. You can do it. This first boss after the 5 pulls fears. He is a pain but pretty easy. (Note: Currently Fear ward does nothing on this boss) Just take your fears like a bear. Pop barkskin around the times you get feared, preferably with lower health. Use your cool downs when you need too. The next 5 waves don't feel as hard and you should do well on. The last boss is fairly easily, long as you get out of the purple things below your feet. You will know them when you see them. You won't need to be quite as intense as the first 5 waves and boss.

Run in kill the guy, swipe first soon as the mirror images come out. While you fight, your swipe should almost kill the healer, and take him, then you, them some dps. Very easy fight.

Part 2

The last section, first Pray, second flask, third eat a feast. Then dps the hell out of the mobs as you run up the hill with jayna, its very straight forward. If you are too slow killing stuff, the lich king kills you. First you get some ghouls dont worry about them, just swipe and kill. But the Abombs and such suck. Around the last one 5 or 6 in. You can tell from placement on the hill, blow beserk. Your whole group needs tons of dps on this. Shamans are nice for heroism and dks for army. If you have the dps, and you spam swipe, you will get it done.

And thats the secret to HOR. Sounds alot easier than it really is.

Good luck, more guides coming.

Sanford

We are fine. A little more armor wouldn't hurt your set, even if you have to drop a stam trinket if your dueling them( like say the tri badge 1700 armor trinket) but we are fine. Just sit back, relax and know that it will be ok.

Everything I have read and Everyone have I have talked to say bears are fine, Still awesome to have tank for them.

The bear has awoken...

I have returned for more fun filled thoughts and strategies, I know I didnt post for a while there. Same with fyurae. We both have been very busy.

More strategy guides to come for the new stuff. Tanking for sure, maybe healing if I can get alittle gear.

For now I leave you with a thought.

Why do people quit the guild in the middle of the night and not say a word? Most of the time its not people we have played with too long, but just a week to a month. No warning and they just decide that they can leave, thats fine. But at least tell the guild leaders what the issue was, maybe they don't feel like we have the right to know why? Maybe I have wronged them in some way. But I really doubt it, its more like people being embarrassed because we aren't what they thought we were going to be.

Many growing pains going on in my guild, Especially with all the new raids and dungeons and badges. I'll give an update on the guild and what we are doing to stay strong.

For now my friends, its good to see you again.

Fuzz man

I hate Tuesdays, mostly for the fact that wow is down. But really because it reminds me of the life I don't have. I sit here reading articles on the wow forums that I answered months ago, I read news articles from wow and not from wow. Today I was so bored I was reading an article about how quickly juice vitimins leave your system, when fyurae said I should blog about juice. So I shall. Ok, mostly not, but alittle bit.

I think that blizzard should take into account that they have the servers down for quite a bit of Tuesdays, and maybe offer us some kind of entertainment. I could be just cranky and enjoy complaining but it doesn't seem so horrible if maybe they could finally do something with their pod casts and such. By on Tuesdays before the server going down they give us something to read or watch or just anything. A gesture to say, well we know the server goes down on Tuesdays, and a lot of you can only play that day, or have time to play, or whatever, and you can't. But here is a token of our appreciation.

Maybe I am dreaming, but it doesn't seem that hard to just give us a blog to read or anything. It is also completely possible they already do this, but I seriously doubt it.

Could someone get a tow truck. Please? How long have we been stuck here?

Heroic halls of lightning tends to be, what are these kids calling it these days... ohh right, A bitch. Tanking this instance you have almost every single hard thing in it, except fire(please blizzard, I am not saying you need to add fire, the instance is good on its own, don't touch it.) Now very simply put this instance is very tank-able, but make sure your gear isn't all blues or polar items. And having a great healer helps.

Lots of aoe damage, don't be discouraged if a member of your group dies or if you wipe once or twice, especially around the beserkers, I don't care how geared you are, it happens.

First boss, clear to the right don't engage him till you have cleared most of the mobs on one side. He is easy other than that, spam swipe, If you lose aggro use your aoe taunt, Might want to use demor roar right off the bat if your lower geared(or if you feel like it). Remember in this entire instance to keep moving and don't let the mobs hit behind you.

During the elementals, I am crazy but ill just bring them all to me, beat the hell out of them, before they die,I pop Survival Inst and barkskin and let them blow. Never failed me yet.


Clear more mobs,at the fork in the road, go left. Clear left, there is no reason to clear the right, unless you are with people who don't listen. Boss fight, the forge guy is pretty easy, just pull him back to you, dps him. He will run up to his forge, soon as hes done taunt him. He will be dead quickly. Adds will come out, get everyone to come to you, aoe taunt, or swipe to get hate. And your done.

Next boss, Ionar, Is a very straight foward fight. Just stay away from the shocker things, blow cool downs as needed, I tend to face him away from the group just out of habit, but it works. Always watch your healer in this fight, and have battle rez waiting if they don't move fast enough.

The next room after this if you have a lot of melee, just be careful, kill runeshapers first, and the beserkers will charge almost killing someone, taunt them quick. Its not really an aggro wipe, but maybe its in my head but they come back to me faster if I taunt them. Take this slow, mark your targets and make sure people work with you. When they begin to whirl wind or wind whirl(whatever it is, Fyurae has made fun of me in the past because I can't remember which one it is). I can't stress enough, that people would rather you go slow, than wipe the raid, Do not be pressured into moving faster than you are comfortable.

Last boss, Tank him where he stands, YOU don't move, If you move it can throw off everything. Tank him where he is, toss up lacerate, attack pretty hard, use CDS and relax. A lot of people hate this instance, I had a really hard time the first few times, but once your used to it, and have a good healer its not too bad.

Signing off for now,
Fuzz

In the wow forums, some dude apparently has no life(ok.. we all have no life...) but hes done or at least compiled all the math and craziness together.

Here

Enjoy this post lots of good information for the level 80 druids who are raiding!

its that time of year for festivities enjoy everyone!

Area-of-Effect Damage Caps: We've redesigned the way area damage is capped when hitting many targets. Instead of a hard cap on total damage done, the game now caps the total damage done at a value equal to the damage the spell would do if it hit 10 targets. In other words, if a spell does 1000 damage to each target, it would hit up to 10 targets for 1000 each, but with more than 10 targets, each target would take 1000 damage divided by the number of targets. 20 targets would be hit for 500 damage each in that example.

Take a minute...Read this very slowly and carefully till you fully grasp the concept.

This is in the upcoming patch, and this doesn't just affect bears, this will affect all classes aoe.

The times where we are aoeing more than 10 things is few unless you run people through instances. But in select situations, like I am pretty sure toc 5 man 2nd boss. YOUR chance of getting hate is severely reduced(other players is reduced as well). I believe that we are going to see if you have more than 10 mobs on you, healers able to pull off of your swipe, that's my prediction. Swipe is already temperamental, and very gear related. Lower geared bears need to understand this change, ensure they are glyphed for challenging roar and be aware of the changes. That's my opinion, untested.

At this moment that looks to be the only change to bears. However, I really don't like the sentence, "Infected Wounds: This ability is no longer considered to be in the magical defense category; therefore spell hit no longer applies to its activation." Fyurae insures me that this does not mean that mangle and swipe will stop procing this. I am sure shes right, I apparently couldn't grasp this concept and she had to explain it very slowly.

other than that suit up, and prepare, Looks like a great patch.

Sanford

your regularly scheduled post for a news update... If anyone has seen the driver of this car please call the authorities... it hit an 80 druid yesterday around 3 pm est.

For the most part a pvp bear spec, just doesn't exist, so I won't be adding one.

Feral dps, boomkin and tree pvp specs are all common place. Don't listen to the forums all are very viable with work and resilience gear.(don't believe me watch Fyurae's blog for the pvp movie)

Cat pvpish spec is here

Lots of periodic damage and stun reduction.

Tree pvp is here

Lots of healing, but a little more attacking and no use for AOE healing, better barkskin.


Now that we have the silly pvp out of the way, we get to hybrid specs.

Restokin is very similar to tree pvp....except alot more points into both, but not picking up some major things. Healing is very tough and mediocre dps in tree.

here

I picked up boomkin, but its really your choice whichever one y0u pick up, either way, that form is gonna be very gimp the one u don't pick up.


here

Is a decent cat bear spec. Able to cat and do some tanking all depending on the gear.

Those are the specs if have so far, thers tons more versions and ill talk about glyphs tomorrow.

For now, ill take care.

Dual specs


Tree and Boomkin

Cat and bear

Tree and cat

Bear and tree

boomkin and bear

I must admit, I have never seen a boomkin bear in my life, but they are all very viable. Bear and cat typically go together due to similar gear and agility gemming. Same deal with boom and tree. but all can be worked in together.

I would say if you just popped 80, either one of those above would be best, I personally went tree and bear and while it worked out great for me, I practically had a cat set anyways, bear, and a healing set. And it was a pain to keep up all the sets of gear. Again a pain, but not to bad.

It is all based on personality, I believe cat is the easiest for soloing, so Cat, and anything probably best as you start doing heroics and doing dailys.


To be Continued....

(next episode or 2 will include pvp specs, cat/bear together, and restokin specs.)

I am dedicating the this post(maybe posts) to the task of answering questions dealing with new 80's who aren't exactly sure what the next step is for them. I am assuming that most new 80's got or are getting dual spec.

Bear or tree? Pvp or pve? cat or boomkin? All are valid questions with quite an abundance of answers, none of which right or wrong.

Bear or tree are the most important to do in raids. Healing is a bit easier to get into heroics and feel competent in a timely manner. Tanking has to do alot with the groups your in and a big deal with gear. Too much stamina when you get to level 80 and you cant hold aggro on anything. To little stam and you die so quickly a healer can't keep you up, especially if the healer isn't well geared. So tank druid, while not impossible Really whichever one you choose is very rewarding, tanks get more obvious praise when doing an instance correctly but healers are more important that tanks in most of my experiences. Even the most horrible tank with close to correct gear, can be healed through an instance.

Next will be the Cat or boomkin dps. Both are viable later on in the game, boomkin rotation is easier than feral dps'. I think gearing a boomkin is easier than cat if you are running with a well geared group, because you can roll on cloth and leather items, were as cat only leather attack power gear. Tis my belief there is a big gap between heroic gear and the conquest badge gear. It is for this reason I recommend not spending a lot of gold enchanting and gemming till after you buy items with conquest badges. So as you gain the conquest/raid gear, each piece will majorly increase your performance, in any spec.

Now there is much more to this post, but to be honest I am completely exhausted. So my friends.

To Be Continued....

(next up: Dual spec combination's)

Our statistics can be quite different from most other classes. Where other thanks make hit rating synonymous with threat, we don't. 8% hit is a great number, but the gear you gain will get you there. Due to our attack power you should never gem for hit, just let it come.

Expertise is a bit of a bit of a pain, sitting at 26 should be your goal. If your over it its no big deal, but 26 is the soft cap for dodge, 56 for parry. So far 56 is almost statistically impossible.

Armor pen is a wonderful thought, but the actual usage of it is so confusing that I say just let the gear fall into your lap, and your armor pen will move up and down.

To note, most of these will cease to exist in cata, maybe even armor pen before then.

Hope that simplifies matters for everyone who wanted to know.

Sanford

One of my favorite all time fights is back with all the hard hits and stupidity I remember. Due to the different strategies that are currently being used on this fight its hard for me to exactly get a good post down for this. Most of the time during the fight bears will be off tanks(we can go into cat form and actually be viable, able to battle rez, and innervate people, as well as dps.) However, its just a matter of when you start getting aggro, making sure you dps relaxes till you are in place. Your place will be with your back against the wall, maybe 5 yards wiggle room between there, IN THE CENTER OF THE WALL.


Around 60-70% she will fly into the air. No matter how your group does this, if you are main or off tanking the roles pretty much are the same. Tank the whelps and tank that adds that come in. You could probably 2 tank it, we usually 3 tank it(25 man version, 2 tanks on 10 man version). Couple on whelps and one on the add that comes out. Please keep in close contact on onyxias health, 40% shes coming down. If you are main tank you will need to not be tanking the add and call for a tank. If you are an off tank, you need to pick up the add and make sure its picked up. Deep breaths will be called, get to the sides or behind her. Please watch on the adds for their blast wave, it does hurt quite a bit.

Phase 3, Kill the dragon. If you are mting, same spot except this time fear. Very quickly after fear get your bearings and put yourself back against the wall, in the middle as much as you can. Use whatever cool downs you want here, right before the fear. Off tanks your only job is too make sure that if someone is tail swiped they don't bring whelps with them, with out getting tail swiped yourself. Another thing is, keep your finger near the taunt button, if your tank goes down, be instantly ready to gain the hate back and begin main tanking.

A quick side note, in my opinion that easiest way to do this instance is too when the whelps come on in phase 2 to just have everyone group up and murder them, moving as a group was more effective for my group.

And that concludes my bear tanking guide to onyxia thank you and good night.

Fuzz

Sorry for my lack of posts lately, real life issues, I will be back posting later this evening. Onyxia post coming.

San man

Did you know that some consider it rude for you to tell them how to play their character? Some people don't want to know what they are doing wrong, they just want to play?

1st Argument

I have ran into many bear druids who stack agility. They are not wrong, that is how they play the game, they dodge and crit more and thus mitigate more damage. I preach mana pool because it makes the healers life easier, and just cuts down over healing in most cases of progression. But what if you don't play with a good healers at all, healers that are late with heals and everything else. Then those druids play the class perfectly. Please don't judge a bear by hit points, there is a lot more to tanking than that.

2nd Argument

This may not stand true for all situations, But why be an insufferable know it all, why tell people how to play. Hey your rotation is wrong, hey your missing this spell, in the middle of party chat. At the very least if you have to say something, say it in a whisper and not condescending.

"Hey, I have found that using wild growth is nice to use instead of spamming rejuvenation, have you tried it or just messing around?"

instead of something like

"Hey, Use WG noob!"

Just my 2 cents on something I thought would be common knowledge.

Fuzz

Sorry for the recent drought in posts, but I will try my best to let the updates continue.

Emalon!!!!!!!

I was playing around on an alt the other day when a buddy of mine was hollering about a tank who just couldn't tank the adds of emalon. I had to go save them, and it was a druid who couldn't do it, So guess what I'm going to write about today!

Background: Emalon is a watcher in the pvp area of wintergrasp, he has 4ish adds around him, keep the adds away from emalon, usually this is done with 2 tanks on either side of the roomish. One add enrages and dps kills the enraged add. Right after this is done you will see a warning if you have dbm that says another joins the fight. The tank needs to taunt that add before it wipes your group. It is this reason that you need your most aware tank to be the off tank in this fight.

Best way to start this fight off as a druid, is smack enrage, run in and swipe, You can also aoe taunt if you don't have a lot of attack power or hit rating. At this point is the most important thing, managing the spawning adds. You have to get a camera angle that allows you to see the other tank as well as your adds. As the new add spawns, I suggest a mouse over taunt. There are problems with that, such as accidentally taunting the boss off the other tank. But you don't want to move too much in taunting, just a few steps and get it. Whenever the add enrages use a barkskin and such. Easy fight once you figure out how to get the adds.

Sanford

Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle is in my opinion an extremely easy instance for moderate/mid level gear players. The most common mistake made in H UP is going into it with a group in greens and blues and expecting to roll it like Utgarde Keep. That is simply not the case.

Note: In this instance there is lots of mobs, No matter what your gear level, or skill level, help your healer. Don't be afraid to use some cool downs before spinny boss to help him out. Make sure that you don't have 10 mobs standing behind you where you can't dodge them. Keep a close eye on the healers mana. These are always rules to tanking, but very very important in here.

First boss: Svala Sorrowgrave.A Valkerie with some health, very easy fight especially if you have a range who can shoot at the boss while its in the air. Achievement: I am not saying its impossible, It just sucks to do as a bear because with maul and swipe hitting multiple targets. Hard for us to tank that achievement here. Best way is to have another tank or a hunters pet, try to tank the big guy near the sword and move them when it comes down killing the scourge.

Watch out during Palehoof for the healers mana, here and there the aggro tables are a little weird, don't be afraid to use taunt. Boss fight is really easy just zerg it and let the healer do his thing, tap barkskin and trinket if you got it during the fight. Really easy.

The next boss is the hardest in the dungeon. This is often referred to as the gauntlet, I just simply call him spinny guy. (skadi the ruthless)

Preamble: Soon as you walk into the room, guy takes off. As the fight goes on harpoons will hit the floor, someone in your group(not you) will shoot them at the flying boss in the sky from the launchers at the end of the hall way. After 6 shots with the launcher the guy flys down and attacks pretty much whoever is closest to him.

Ok, first when the event starts run half way down the corridor( or all the way if you have really good dps.) Now, just sit and camp the room where the 2 or 3 guys spawn. Kill them off and keep your camera slightly tilted, Soon as boss comes down, Taunt, Then FFF then Mangle. IN that order so that he doesn't one shot a person. You taunt for the snap aggro, then use your usual tanking rotation. Now the boss hates you, you dps for a while, he starts to spin. GET OUT OF THE WAY. If he spins towards you run!!!!!! If he spins away, Watch him, if he gets close to a dps or someone, you can taunt him towards you while hes spinning to save your dps or heals. Very important. If he touches the healer, you will probably have to do the fight over again, or battle rez him very quickly. Once you get these things down this is a fairly easy fight, just don't under estimate wind whirl or whirl wind, whatever it is.

Last but not least is the king, He is just plain annoying, Open with the usual, FFF, then mangle for snap aggro. Every like 20 seconds he will put you to sleep, and unlock a box. Really the boxes are nothing to be too scared of except the one that's much more harsh than the Violet hold bubble things. They can kill you. Its the last box on the left side, it kills people. If he gets this box, stay away from the silver things eventually he will freeze you again and if your near the silver things your probably dead. After that the boss is cake, just annoying.

UP the down and dirty version by Fuzz

Read here on Fyurae's Blog. We are rolling out to defend our brothers and sisters on foreign lands! Come play just make some things for level 1's. Like running people through instances, make a DK and run them through. Thousand playes at least in this guild, more coming every day. If your bored playing the same old way, try something different.

Ill be there whenever im bored, sanfod

Tonight I write with specifically uld and raid toc on my mind. I have started to get a little tired of the fire effects that blizzard keeps repeating into every boss fight. I swear it feels like in every boss fight with the new content whenever blizz is sitting down going well hmmm this fight seems boring. Some dork says, "Fire, burn burn, add fire!!!!"

I am all for making encounters hard and not watering down the game, I liked it when wiping on bosses 20 times before you got it down was great. Not just one shotting or 3 shotting a boss that blizz spent 6 months creating. I want the constant struggle, the horrible feeling going to bed at night, the drive to defeat them, People, everyone farming mats to make sure your guild succeeds. But can't they become a little more creative, and toc doesnt count, Just because the fire is yellow and lands on you, its still fire.

I guess blizzard maybe tapped all its thoughts and resources as it made 3 games, and with the announcement of an expansion making all the lower level stuff going to higher levels, some new content announced but no idea what it could be, to me just proves that we are in for more annoying fire. I wouldnt even mind for some more spikes like in AN, or more guys running around whirwinding or windwhirling, I can never remember which one it is. More having to kill eachother like in old kingdom, Or even better something original. Use the battle group and have horde and alliance characters 5 in each instance join together with out speaking try to work together on something. Maybe more Vehicle fights like flame but actually allow you to use your talents and such. Maybe an instance that grows you as giants running you across west fall fighting giant dragons or harvesters.

Something, other than fire blizz, I beg of you.

Fuzzy

(ps: more tanking guides coming later on)

I continue my series of posts for tanking information with a quick guide to some information that many other bloggers probably don't discuss. This is for all tanks, but specifically druids.

The main skills a tank requires is being able to hold threat and not get your team into more than it can handle. A close third is knowing when to using your cool downs to help your healer. 3 things

Logic: If you don't know an instance and your gear is lacking, it is probably best to take it slow. Use your resources, a hunter to help pull in tight spots. A dk to pull a caster closer to you, and/or line of sight. Line of sight is very important(if you don't know, LOS as its called, is when u attack then move away from the target putting a wall or such in front of you and the target, this is usually used against magic targets and helps to make them move so you don't pull pats or other groups.) Try to use your cool downs as you go, especially barkskin and just relax. I can remember not being relaxed and freaking out every time a mob would run by me. If you have a hunter in the group and you see a target run by you on a pull, within a few seconds see a target above your head, the hunter is decent enough to misdirect the target back to you. Doesn't always happen, maybe you will have to taunt the target, But dont lose your composure. Relax and have fun.

Macros:I use a couple macros to make my tanking life easier

#showtooltip
/assist [target=mouseover]
/cast Growl

This particular beauty allows me growl at whatever my mouse is hovering over, very useful for that mob you see going out of the corner of your eye.

Got a dps who likes to ignore markes or what ur attacking. Try

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover,harm] Growl

If you hover over the dps on grid or in game frames and click this macro, it will taunt what hes targeting. Very helpful in pug groups.

I also use one like the first one for FFF, just to help me pull quickly and easily.

Addons: For raids you have to have GRID. If a player lights up in red, most likely they have aggro. Very important to be able to know that fact esp when doing trash or anything with multiple mobs. If you see a target on that in red then you know you need to get over their, or use one of those macros.

Deadly boss mods, is awesome to have for all the timers and raid warnings it gives.

And last but not least for essential tanking is omen/wows threat meter. It is awesome to know who has hate on what, whether its another tank or anything. I recommend this for all classes and types.

simpleraidtarget icons is an addon that allows you to very very very simply put on icons above baddies heads. Basically with one button or shift click they can put an icon above their head.


Tanking is ultimately all about how quick you react to situations. You to be super quick and decisive. As content continues to grow, more and more tank and spank will become dead and more interesting fights will come. I am sure I will be adding more thoughts to this as we go.

My addon list:

Grid, click, dbm, omen, outfitter, pit bull, domino's, cartographer, add on control panel, miks scrolling battle text, recount, sell junk, simpleraidtarget icons.

For this post, most of the research of class dynamics and tanking mechanisms I did myself. I am sure that there is hundreds more addon's and macros that can make it even easier, this just happens to be what I use, I don't claim to be an addon master or even close. Fyurae has spent a decent amount of time with addons in her years and pretty much gave me what she thought I could use, I added one or 2 here and there.

san
(in a side note, this post was put up before I could edit grammar and completely finish it)

I am not changing my stance on the new expansion, but I did have a thought today. I was doing a VH on my alt dwarf priest,he on the stairs while I was on the top them, he didn't have line of sight due to height, I assume. And I began to think, with a gnome priest in the expansion, its going to be even worse. Every instance is going to become a fight for height. As blizz continues creating inclines in the game, gnomes are going to become horror stories in every instance. Even the old fights, like doing ubrs, constantly moving on inclines. Every time you get a gnome priest in your group, it will become common place for mages,rogues, shamans and whoever else can do interrupts to plan their first or 2nd attack to do that so the tank can pull the targets to level ground. It will become so common place for gnome priests to wipe groups because of line of sight that we will make can acronym for it, I am personally leaning towards kbg(killed by gnome). Maybe Dibs(done in by shorty) or h4tl(height for the loss).

Blizzard already doesn't give gnomes enough love( Ever been to black fathom deeps as a gnome, while your night elf friends run though the puddles and you have to swim) and now you will see the true fight of a gnomes existence, isn't killing bosses, but battling its disability, yeah I said it, every gnome battling your handicap, this post goes out to you.

So remember, in a few years when your group wipes to a gnome healer and you see, sorry DBM(death by midget), you will remember ole fuzz's prediction.

Profession gains as they result for a druid.

Leather working-Fur lining 90 stam, Obvious gear advance and pants enhancement.

Enchanting- Obvious all gear enhancement, 24 stam to ring each one. minus a big amount of money

Skinning- money and crtical strike

Engineering- Hours and hours of fun, but a money pit

Mining- 60 more stam

Herbing- 3.6k health regen over 5 seconds. slightly scales with health (ie druid with 37.4k health about 4200)


three thoughts for me here, If you dont need money, enchanting and leather working. Lots of stam in this method, and if your dual spec able to do alot of different things with them

If you need money, but want to have some fun, do skinn and leather first, get leather to 450 and go mining. with the bracer and base stam increase.

Lastly add herb in there, herb and whatever, I really like this method most of all, it goes against what alot of other tanks do, but I think with the new herbing slightly working with your health pool, it really favors druids, its like a health pot with a 3 min cool down thats unlimited.

Remember this is my complete opinion for whats best for a tank.

This is another tanking post on simplifying Druids job in a raid. Today's lesson, the flame watcher of VOA.

To start with I should put in you need a good geared healers and dps, around 3k ish

Burning Fury debuff (which increases damage taken by the entire raid by 5% and stacks another stack every 20 seconds.) This is the reasoning for the dps, requirements. You need to be able to kill em, before that debuff kills you.

I have found the best way to tank this is a slow circle around the giant hexagon. If healers are dying you might instruct them to up their particle density or stay kind of away from the middle area, Very hard to see the fire. This Requires 2 tanks but only one of you should be top on threat, other in 2nd.

Around the middle of the fight when the debuffs have been stacking majorly, its time to get your frenzied regen, lifeblood(herbing hot), barkskin

Use these during a spell called Meteor Fists. You and the other tank and whoever else is in front of the boss when this goes off is going to take alot, ALOT of damage. My group did it with myself and another bear, easy as hell on the healer. Ive heard with other tanks they need to put another class up there like a dk with frost up for a sec or something like that.

During the final say 5% or so of life, The tanks take alot of damage, when it happens be ready, at least with barkskin, and hope the healing is there.

Its a fairly easy tank and spank, just have to have the dps.

It was pointed out to me, that I might have been a little tired/excited in my last posts. I re did some of the punctuation, and corrected a few sections of typos. To anyone who read them(very few people I'm sure), I apologize.

san

Heroic AN

It is my opinion, the very first boss area is the hardest in the whole instance, with one note.


If you do not have anyone in the group that is a shaman, druid or pally, I wouldn't do it, due to the poison. It hits hard, its nasty and its completely random. If there is a shaman in your group make sure he drops the totem, if a priest is healing you, and have a pally or druid doing dps, they have to understand the poison is there responsibility, if not, you will most likely fail.

However, the first stuff sucks, What I do is pull with FFF(feral faire fire), remember to kill the smaller guys first, the caster I would use FFF on, kill the small guys and try to position it so that you are facing towards your group, your butt near the caster for swipe. Swipe is essential here. If you are in lower gear, use EVERY cool down you can. The packs with the caster hit hard, and it can be no fun at all. During the first boss, critters run out everywhere, Swipe should grab them, if not, instruct your healer to move to you quickly drop your aoe taunt, swipe and pray. Remember the AOE taunt has a 15 yard radius, timing is impeccable.

Next boss is so easy, until someone says , hey can we get the achievement. Then begin to cry yourself to sleep in a pool of your own blood. Ok, its not that bad. Number 1, Sacrifice someone in the group, after you pull a few of mob groups and the boss comes out fighting the 20 mobs, have someone go down there and die. Just down the hill and die, not you or the healer.(hunter would be great at this). DO NOT FOLLOW. After this you are going to stand there, and be like well what now, as your standing there hopefully, you will see this web fly at you, and pull you towards the boss. If it is not you, you need to get in there and get the mobs off of whoever got webbed to the boss, very quickly, very very quickly. The healer will follow you, after you have been pulled. At this point you are tanking about 15 mobs more or less. Make sure to use your cool downs here as well, and with a little bit of luck and you freaking out, Everything should be ok(should, no promises, this is on the healer and your gear).

The last boss(poison cleansing for whoever can) of this area can be very competitive, as a tank in this instance, you have to step it up at least for this boss. You need to move every time the ground below you is shaking, if you get blasted up wrong time, can be very bad. The boss also does a move known as pound, for the most part you will dodge or be moving when its coming down. Note he ususally does this move right before he burrows under the ground. Due to druids health, don't worry about it so much if you take one or two, you can eat the damage its pretty big, like 20k or so, but with savage defense up and a little luck it wont be horrible. Main thing is to watch your healers back on the mobs, and don't get overwhelmed with the trash as it comes in, use your innervate during the breaks on the healer when its up if he needs it.

And that my friends is tanking AN, Every trick and tip I know.

Fuzz

I bring to your attention some questions that have been asked and some rather complicated ideals.

Recently, in patch 3.1, druid bears were given a beautiful ability called savage defense. It's a 25% damage taken shield, the catch is its a proc, to have this proc you have to deal a crtical strike. Hence, Critical strike and agility stats gems or item enhancments will cause these this to proc more, causing you to take less damage. Agility will also add dodge. So as far as I'm concerned if you want to stack agility with a little stamina and tank go right ahead, I personally I like stacking stamina for geared healers(making it easier to heal the big health market I offer). But as you can see I will take more damage this way.

I'll be honest with you the math that goes into dodge diminishing returns is crazy, especially since I would have to redo the math thats been done since its different now that 3.2 came out. if you want to do the math or look at it wowwiki has it, but remember thats not 3.2. However, one thing is very simple to under, as the fight gets longer you lose dodge.

However, there is other things. Armor count for bears is actually much higher than for other classes, most sit around 23k to 25, where even in my full stam trinkets and rings im at a 27.5 with more mitigation gear on around 30k, Use to be you had to worry about a cap, but now its 45,697 at level 80, good luck hitting that.

The truth is, Bears are the worst mitigation tank in the game, all this sounds great, but compared to other classes, who have dodge, parry and block for pallys and warriors. So no matter what happens, bears are missing one mitigation stat, 2 in some cases, but as we crit more with savage defense we are getting very close.

At this time i feel like I have left something out, I will make another post if i remember anything else. Thank you for reading

Sanford
(please remember to use barkskin every minute you can, as I have listed ealier.)

For the most part i have discussed tanking as a druid so far, I am a dual spec healer tank and pretty decent healer for my part.

This post is specifically for healing it, I will be going over tanking this instance at another time.

Healing this instance can be the biggest challenge I think I have ever had. I have done it countless times with out a problem, then the last 2 days i went in there 2 times with the same group(pretty much, sub hunters first time one hunter was alittle dps low) attempting it. Death knight tank(admittedly under geared a little) 25 man lock, 25 man hunter, 10/25 man dk blood and myself, nice guild run.


This ended up being 2 of the toughest runs ive ever done. I dont mean in toc, i mean in the game, Theres times in both of these fights where i healed with everything i had, and it almost wasnt enough.

phase 1 the three champions

We had small issues with poison and the usual but i noticed i was almost out of mana around the end, and had used innervate. Which for me is unheard of, in 10 man uld I use my intervate on dps. Straight and simple, DKs take a lot of damage. They have taken alot of hits and to no fault of their own, they just dont make the greatest of tanks right now. But we got through it with no major problems.

Phase 2 we got the boss who fears. and this is where the problems begin, no shaman or priest to help with fear, no damage eating pally or warrior. It took a few try's but the tank determined that he could use anti magic shield out of the fear, the locks cookies and some healing pots to help keep him up. Healing from a druids perspective on this one sucks. HOT as you may me with big spellpower the ticks were nothing compared to the hits from behind, and i would spend most of my time healing the tank back up to full health, I had to get other the other folks to use cookies potions whatever to get back up. It is always possible Im not the greatest healer, But i dont think that's it. A mix between bad tanking and no help with the fear, I could keep everyone else alive but the tank keep getting hit hard. Esp hard when the tank gets feared and takes hits from behind and cant dodge or parry.

remember to have you group come close together for your Aoe heal right before the fear, that way you have 4 to 5 ticks during the fear and can aoe heal right after,make sure to use regrowth, first heal nourish 2nd regrowth after the fear, all the dots you can get. Try to save tranquility for last boss, hot anyone you can with lifebloom or rejuv before the fear if u can and if you have a big mana pool. Main thing is keep the tank up, my tank was 30k hp and taking hits around 15 to 17k whether chain hits of 7.5 or so who knows, but its a tough encounter. If the fear happened right after those hits its gonna be a tough thing to keep the tank up.

Last boss is cake, heal the tank with hots and group with Wild growth and phase 3 after the explosioin hit tranquiltity after a few seconds of it and go to sleep.

This post is longer than I thought it would be but i hope it gives a better understanding to healing.

see you next time(maybe later tonight) for more druid information,

fuzz man

I must admit I hummed and tossed over going over this in my last post, But I am trying to make my posts quick concise guides to follow, this one may not be.

The logic behind the rant:

Many druids believe that stacking stamina is the way to go, its the best way to defend and all it will do is lower your healers overhealing. Other druids believe that stacking agility will increase dodge making your mitigation higher meaning your healers have less to heal, and that goes double, There is less of a health tank to heal. 29k health but 42% dodge or 35k health and 35% dodge, take your pick. And then there are others who believe in a health mixture of scaling and mixing gems.

Fuzzy Logic:

Tis my belief, and i must be honest i haven't seen this written in to many other areas anywhere, That its not what you gem, But when you gem. For just starting heroics putting on agility is great, you never know what kind of healer you need and for pretty much everything(heroics) other than TOC and maybe UP having the big health pool isnt needed. Your going to get healers with big spellpower or mana pools will love all the health because their gear can handle it, lower ones have to do more healing and you will not do as well as you can.Once you begin getting some badge and naxx 10 gear you want to move to mixing gems to stam and agility. As you move to 25 man uld or 10 man uld as a tank, Stam begins to take importance but plenty of agiltiy gems, For those of us lucky enough to have sets of tanking gear you can kinda care some mixtures and have a higher dodge set for trash and a lower but more health for bosses and its my belief that would be best.

Please gem agility not dodge, I know its pretty, but having the extra crtical strike gains more threat everytime you crit.

On a side note, When I hit 80 I had made for me the frost resistance set for me, Please dont throw that away if u have it made, it comes in very handy later, Put agility on it and its a great tank set for starters and if u go skinner can probably make it for yourself for the price of a frozen orb and tipping of a leatherworker. The only problem with this route is you threat level will be lower because those dont have attack power built in. Single target will not be too difficult but swipe will definatly be hurting for you.

Thank you all for reading, next post I will discuss addons and macros that I use and why.

Da fuzz man

Unless you have been out of the country or rping in goldshire the last few days(even then you might know), You have heard about the new expansion. Cataclysm.

Maybe its just me but since then there has been explosions of information faulty and real going everywhere, tons of speculation for every spec and bit and piece of information. And I am just not feeling it, Its a year away at most, probably with blizzards time tables, 2 years. I have a lot more game to concentrate on before then. All the other bloggers, in game psychopaths, and forum lurkers are all so excited let me be the first(well probably not the first to say) Bah humbug!

Im not going to get excited about the expansion until Im playing it, And by that time will be writing here how to tank,heal, dps and overall mechanics.

Again thank you for reading my rant and ill get back to writing tanking specs

Sanford
(ps: Thank you to liz for actually making my blog look presentable and her continued patience with me)

I had began to start getting together all the gear upgraded and best things you can do to become the best bear you can be when I realized that there is an amazing guide of this already.

Here

In this, is a guide of a lot of the best gear in the game. One thing I would like to add that this list is out of date due to H TOC and regular toc, as well as now no emblems of heroism so you can jump in with emblems of conquest. So make sure to get the 126 stam trinket and armor buffing trinket out of TOC reg. the boots out of TOC H are the best tanking boots i think in the game. tons of agility.

Gemming and stats questions are going to be answered by my next post.

Sanford

(I am setting forth into this post with the goal in mind to make as much sense as I possibly can, I may break this, and for that I apologize)

In this segment I will be going over the mechanics and rotations I use as a bear tank. The next serious segment will be gear, and it will probably be the most intensive out of my posts for all the research I have to do to feel I've done the task successfully. It might be a little bit before that is done.

Bear tanking 101

feral faerie fire(FFF) is usually the first spell I cast, I usually cast it upon whoever needs to die first and I usually don't apply again. If you are fighting trash(bad guys who are not a boss) I usually open with swipe and maul and move to mangle on cool down. If you are having problems with a group and or gaining aggo you might want to try leading with mangle, Its called snap aggression and its a wonderful tool to use if your group is very exuberant. From their its a rinse and repeat through the list of targets

As a starting druid Please make sure you group is aware they can dps as hard as they want, but let you get in there for a second, I usually say 2 Lacerates. Lead with FFF, then Lacerate to 5. At this point you should have enough rage to smack him, hit maul, mangle, and swipe in that order. Mangle will go off first, maul probably around then and then the swipe(Maul is a next attack command so it activates on your next melee attack).

The next issue is defenses, your given frenzied regen and barkskin. A lot of druids and i agree the best way to treat barks kin is as long as your getting attacked and your health is dropping its ok to use bark skin. Long as your not next to boss who's really quick and it wont be up for it. I must admit frenzied regen is sometimes a 2nd thought as your trying to help the healer though a long fight. Which isn't a bad way to use it, however if you used it at the start of the fight around the end you might be able to pop it again. Plus it usually means letting the healer know, if you use it and the healer doesn't know by the time they figure it out they have over healed you and stop healing you and you take a shot. Not saying its not great to use but I love having ventrillo or a macro to tell the healer this information.

Last piece of knowledge is using enrage. Sure great you get more rage wonderful, at the expence of your healer. Notice in the tooltip for enrage it says lowers armor, Please be aware of when you run in using enrage first thought with 5 targets hitting you, its your health bar and the healers mana pool, and maybe you should think about it like clicking it off right before you go in or get hit.

That ends this one,
Sanford

I was recently talking with a "friend". She was doing a VH with a member in her guild who got killed randomly(ok not so random, the members a rogue) and was complaining about it. I asked the question of who was tanking,it was a warrior or dk I don't remember, who was healing, A pally.

It irritates a lot of people and me when people don't understand class mechanics. Pallys are amazing healers. Pally s don't have a lot of multi target/aoe healing. Healing the tank out duties healing the rogue. A warrior is going to hold great aggro on one target, But anything more is quite stressful. Anyone who has played the game should understand basic concepts of class dynamics before yelling and being upset and snotty. And I am certinaly not placing the blame in any corner but maybe the death your so upset about could be your fault for not focus firing, not watching aggro levels. Theres many other answers to examine before assulting someone on their play style.

To do a quick recap.

Tanking:

1. Warrior single target and burst 2 or 3. highly based on rage.
2. Druid best mix of both imho, lowest mitigation, but high health and armor.
3. DK alittle low on holding aggression but 2 aoe aggro grabs and tons of tricks
4. Pally the king of all aoe tanks right now, Great on aggression

Bear is quite possibly the simplest form that druids possess. Bear tanking is very simple, few buttons to hit, and abilities to rely on. For the next day or two I'm going to talk on different druid tanking subjects, Gear, Abilites, Talents and over all strategy.

It was a toss up between starting with abilites and talents but I decided on talents first.

I recommend something along the lines of...

http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=11&tal=0000000000000000000000000000503232130322010353100303013501203503012000000000000000000

You can fight over it all day, But you need to have survival of the fittest, you cant tank with out it.

Where most tanks have to obtain a certain amount of defense to be uncrittable, We druids do not, we are the only class who does not have too.(Till next expansion so I've heard) SotF by definition makes that so we don't have too, Get it.

Infected wounds is basically thunder clap for us, and amazing at reducing our damage taken. Notice that the spec I have gives expertise(through primal precision) which is vital for tanking since it decreases chance to be dodged or parried when attacking.

And my last point for this post is that I gained a lot of attack power using this spec, Which is vital to keeping aggro. I think the rest of the talents are self explanitory but if anyone has questions please ask either here or though my email, sanfordanddruid@yahoo.com

First post is nothing too important, Just a little explanation.

I am Sanford, I play on a small world of warcraft server but have played on the big ones. I am currently a co Guild master in a guild that is progressing through uld 25. Have you asked the question as a druid of What should I do, How should i spec, what stats are important. Well I hope in due time to answer everything I know to my knowledge.