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