Gearing up your character, that is to constantly obtain better pieces of equipment, is one of the core principles of the game. But what exactly makes one piece of gear better than another one? With this guide I will attempt to answer that question in depth. I will try to explain how gear works in the game, so that you can answer it yourself. This is going to be a very basic and generalized guide. You will not find a list of absolute numbers here for every spec, class and setup there is (other than some examples, to illustrate a point), to make the best out of this guide, you will still have to research your class.

Part 1: math and mechanics

Every piece of gear has stats on it, and these stats are what we are after – the more stats, the better! The total amount of stats on an item depends on the so-called item budget, which is decided by three factors:

The item level (short ilevel). This is an abstract number that illustrates how high up an item is on the progression scale. For example an item that drops in a Vanilla raid instance (which is level 60 content) will have a lower item level than pretty much any item that drops anywhere in Northrend (level 70+ content), and something from Ulduar will have a lower level than a drop from Icecrown Citadel. Other than the item budget, the ilevel also has direct influence on the damage values of a weapon and the amount of armor value on armor pieces. For leveling items it also interacts with the minimum character level required to equip/use an item (i.e. higher ilevel requires higher character level). Display of the item level in item’s tool tips can be enabled in the game’s options.

The quality (also called rarity: green/uncommon, blue/rare, purple/epic). The formula to calculate the item budget uses different modifiers, which increase the result with increasing quality. This effect, while not important at all for current end-game content (where everything is of the same quality; i.e. epic), becomes relevant while leveling up and at the release of a new expansion. You will often find green or blue items with a higher item level than epics from older content, which due to the modifiers in fact still have a lower item budget. For example a character decked out in Mount Hyal and Black Temple epics from Burning Crusade would hardly replace any of those items with greens or blues while leveling up in Northrend, before hitting level 80.

The slot modifier. An item has it’s budget modified based on what equipment slot it fits in. “Bigger” items have more stats on them, but in return they also cost more when purchased or need a larger amount of materials when crafted.

Slot modifiers:
1.0 (1/1): head, chest, legs, 2-handed weapon
0.75 (3/4): shoulders, hands, waist, feet
0.68 (17/25): trinkets (this value is debatable/unconfirmed since many trinkets have some form of proc ability, that is difficult to quantify)
0.65 (9/16): wrists, neck, back, finger, off-hand/shield
0.42 (27/64): 1-handed weapons
0.32 (81/256): ranged weapons (other than wands)
0.31 (5/16): wands

Upgrading gloves, trinkets or rings will yield a lower increase in item budget that upgrading a chest piece or headgear would give. To maximize your immediate gain it would be preferable to upgrade the bigger item first. However, if you pay for the upgrade with a limited resource (e.g. Emblems or high-end crafting materials) it can be more cost-effective to buy the smaller item first (and saving the surplus resources for the next purchase). Often a smaller item’s cost/budget ratio is better, which means in the medium term you would gain more by getting multiple items faster (especially if you can get a set bonus faster this way). On the long term it doesn’t matter, though, since most serious raiders will earn more emblems than they need anyway.

An example: Bob just did his first couple of Northrend heroics. He is still wearing an old helmet from Sunwell Plateau (ilevel 159, item budget 114) and some green quest item for the shoulders (ilevel 174, budget 75). Now he has enough Emblems of Triumph to buy a new piece for either slot. Both new pieces are ilevel 245 epics, which equals to a budget of 256 for the head and 192 for the shoulders. Minus the budget of the existing items this would be an upgrade of 142 budget points for the head and 117 for the shoulders. However, the head costs 75 emblems, that’s 1.89 budget points per emblem, while the shoulders cost only 45 emblems: 2.6 budget points per emblem – and there’s 30 emblems left over, which would allow to buy yet another upgrade pretty soon.

This also means for example that one 2-handed weapon gives a 16% higher item budget than dual-wielding two 1-handed weapons (which is the reason why 2-handers are so popular “stat-sticks” for hunters, by the way).

In case you really want to know, the exact formulas behind all this are:
For epic items: itembudget = e^{((ilevel + 344.36) / 106.29)} * slotmodifier
For rare items: itembudget = e^{((ilevel + 287.14) / 97.632)} * slotmodifier
For uncommon items: itembudget = e^{((ilevel + 292.23) / 101.18)} * slotmodifier
(”e” is a mathematical constant and equals approximately 2.71828183.)

Sometimes, due to a glitch in the Matrix, an item finds it’s way into the game that is either under or over budget, meaning it has either less or more stats on it than it should have, according to it’s item budget. These items are usually considered buggy and will be fixed in a patch.

Now we know where exactly the total item budget comes from, but there’s one more factor that plays a role for the final result: Many stat have a stat modifier, meaning some stats are more “expensive” or “cheaper” than others.

Stat modifiers:
1 (1/1): primary stats (STR, AGI, INT, SPI) and combat ratings (crit, hit, exp, haste, ArP, dodge, parry, block)
0.67 (2/3) Stamina
0.5 (1/2) Attack Power
0.86 (6/7) Spell Power
2 (2/1) Mp5
0.07 (1/14) Bonus Armor
0.33 (13/40) Block Value

This concept becomes transparent if you look at gems of the same quality: It is safe to assume that all current epic gems (excluding JC-only gems, of course) have the same item budget. One gem for example can have 20 Strength, 30 Stamina or 40 Attack Power, all of which is the same value once the above modifiers are taken into account. Note that due to rounding, Spell Power gems are actually slightly under budget (by 0.33 points). This does of course not mean that a cheaper stat is automatically better than a more expensive one. Strength for example converts into 2 Attack Power per point for melee classes (except rogues), which directly balances out with the stat modifier.

In WoW-terminology, itemization describes the distribution of different stats on an item, i.e. how much of which stat an item has.

Sockets are an interesting topic on their own. It is not entirely clear how Blizzard handles sockets when creating an item, however the current assumption goes as followed: First, an item without any sockets is designed, and the stats allocated. Then the stat value for a random stat is reduced by 16 points for each socket on the item. This means generally that a socketed item is always superior to one without sockets – the more sockets the better. For one, with current epic gems the budget of the socket is lower than that of the gem, meaning with each socket you effectively get 4 points of item budget for free. More importantly though, you gain the possibility to trade a less desirable stat for a high priority one and you gain flexibility. On top of that, the socket bonus is just that: A free bonus with no cost.

Another interesting anomaly are melee weapons for spellcasters. Caster weapons have their dps value reduced, to create additional item budget, so to speak, which is invested into additional spell power.

As a side note (just for completion’s sake), stats do not simply have their modifiers applied and then are added up, to meet the item budget. There’s some more math involved here:
itembudget = (((stat1 * statmod)^{log(2)/log(1.5)}) + ((stat2 * statmod)^{log(2)/log(1.5)}) + … + ((statn * statmod)^{log(2)/log(1.5)})) ^{1/(log(2)/log(1.5))}
(log(2)/log(1.5) equals to approximately 1.7095)

Part 2: conclusion

So much for the cold theory of item mechanics. We now know why exactly one item is “better” than another one, but where do we go from here? Earlier I said “the more stats on an item, the better”, but that is of course only half of the truth. I also mentioned “high priority” stats and “less desirable” stats. Each class values stats differently. While some of these choices are obvious (a tank will want defensive stats and Stamina and a mage above all Spell Power, while Attack Power is not so much a good idea for a mage), some of them aren’t (Haste is a strong stat for an Assassination rogue, while Armor Penetration would be better for a Combat rogue). Stat weighting has a major impact on how good an item actually is for a specific class or spec, and it is far more difficult to quantify than what was described in part 1. The problem is that it is individual for each class and spec, and can even differ significantly depending on gear or play style.

An example: Agility is the highest priority stat for a Survival hunter: additional Agility will generally result in the highest dps increase, compared to the same amount of stat value of all other stats (with the exception of hit rating; more on that later). But it is not self-evidently clear just about how much better Agility is than any other stat – that depends highly on the character’s gear. Let’s assume a quite well geared hunter, for whom 1 point of Agility gives 2.0 dps, while 2 points of Attack Power (i.e. the same value after stat modifier) give 1.5 dps, 1 Crit Rating gives 1.2 dps and 1 ArP gives 1.8 dps (all of these are somewhat realistic values). If we now look at a couple of hypothetical items:
Axe of Agility: 100 Agi, 50 AP, 75 Crit
Fist of Fury: 75 Agi, 100 AP, 75 Crit
Sword of Power: 50 Agi, 150 AP, 75 ArP
All three items have the same item budget, however due to the itemization and stat weighting they would give significantly different increases in dps. At first glance one might think the Axe of Agility is obviously best, because it has by far the highest amount of the highest priority stat. But it actually would only be second best, with 327.5 dps, after the Sword of Power with 347.5 dps (the Fist of Fury loses with 315 dps). It is a common mistake to look only at the highest priority stat. But if we were to assume a different weighting (for a less well geared hunter Crit will be more valuable and ArP less) this might look quite different. This is why it is absolutely mandatory to research your class thoroughly. Generalized example stat weightings can often be found in class / spec guides. Better would be to actually calculate those values specifically for your character.

There are two more things I want to mention in this context; firstly stat caps. A cap marks a point from where on increasing a stat will either only yield a strongly reduced benefit (this is called a soft cap) or no benefit at all (hard cap). Not every stat has a cap and existing caps can differ significantly (again: research your class). Increasing Attack Power or Spell Power for example will always increase your damage by the same factor, no matter how much you already have: There is no cap for these stats. But when it comes to hit rating it is obvious that you cannot hit with more than 100% of your attacks and spells. While for many classes/specs hit rating below 100% hit chance is a high-priority stat, it becomes absolutely worthless at above 100%. Increasing a stat above the hard cap should be avoided as much as possible, since it is a complete waste of item budget.

A more complex example: Haste reduces casting time and global cooldown on spells down to a minimum of 1 second. Meaning, for an Arcane mage the hard cap is reached once the casting time of Arcane Blast is reduced to 1 second. This is not really achievable just by stacking haste rating from gear alone, but there are a number of buffs that have to be taken into consideration: Wrath of Air totem, T10 set bonus, Icy Veins, Heroism/Bloodlust, possibly Black Magic enchantment and use/proc effects from trinkets. This means there are quite a few different numbers for what the cap for haste from gear could be, depending on what buffs are available. Ultimately, with all possible buffs stacked up and regular haste from gear, the mage will easily be high above the cap, even though only for short amounts of time. But this can mostly be avoided by not stacking active buffs (e.g. not using Icy Veins during Heroism/Bloodlust). Therefore it would not be advisable to stop stacking haste on gear (which overall is a very effective stat for an arcane mage) as soon as the lowest possible soft cap is reached, but rather to search for the sweet spot, where loss of dps from over-capping (during periods of stacked buffs) starts to out-weight loss of dps from being below the cap (during periods without buffs), always keeping in mind what buffs you actually can expect to have.

Secondly, stats scaling: Most stats scale linearly, meaning, like mentioned above, increasing a stat by a certain amount will yield the same gain, independently from how much of that stat you already have (up until the cap, if applicable). 1 point of stamina will always give you 10 points of health, regardless of if you have 1000 stamina or 2000 stamina.
But while most combat ratings scale linearly, they also scale interdependently and depending on attack power (or spell power, respectively): The absolute result from increasing one stat depends on how much of another stat you have. For example, if you increase your AP, your normal attacks hit harder, and as a result your crits will also hit just as much harder. This means, while 45.91 crit rating will always translate into 1% of crit chance, that 1% might translate into a gain of maybe 200 dps or 300 dps, depending on how high your AP is.
In contrast to this, defensive stats (defense rating, dodge, parry, armor) have diminishing returns. The more you have, the lower the effect of additional points in these stats will be. The base conversion rate for dodge rating for example is 45.25 for 1% of dodge chance. A tank who already has a high amount of dodge however will find that he needs significantly more dodge rating for the same increase in dodge chance. This mechanic was added to the game to prevent tanks from becoming truly unhittable, i.e. able to fully avoid every single attack made against them.
Armor penetration on the other hand is kind of a black sheep. It counteracts armor, which has diminishing returns, which means armor penetration has increasing returns: It becomes more effective, the more you have (again, up until the cap).

Fortunately it is hardly ever necessary to actually use the formulas I quoted above, and do all the math yourself, because there is a number of tools that will do this for you. The range in complexity goes from relatively simple gear rating systems like the well-known GearScore or rating websites like Be Imba!, up to highly complex simulations, like Rawr. There also are a selection of specialized simulations for individual classes or specs. While all of these tools can be useful (you will need a simulation to find out the actual stat weighting that applies to your character, for example; it is hardly ever feasible to calculate this by yourself), always be aware of their limitations! In it’s basic form, GearScore for example will only show the budget of an item (i.e. what was described in part 1 of this guide), but it will not judge on how well it is itemized for whatever class/spec is using them. A warrior could equip spellcaster cloth-items from heroic Icecrown Citadel and earn an exceptionally high raw score, even though those items are actually useless for that class.
More complex models will not make this mistake, but even the most elaborate simulation will always remain just that: a simulation. While their creators go to incredible lengths to make them as accurate as possible, there’s only so much that can be done. Almost every encounter in the game has different mechanics that are quite impossible to simulate accurately: adds, target switching and movement, only to name the simpler things you run into. Also, the more complex a system is, the more prone it becomes to errors.

An example: According to Shandara’s famous hunter dps spreadsheet, any half-decently geared hunter will deal more damage in a Marksman (MM) spec, compared to a Survival (SV) spec. However, the total dps number the sheet gives under the bottom line is a bit deceiving. A closer look at the detailed numbers will show that with MM, the majority of the damage shifts towards Steady Shot and Auto Shot. Both of these shots can only be used while standing still, while Explosive Shot, the main damage dealer for SV, is an instant and hence can be used while moving. Therefore, on encounters that require high mobility, MM loses a lot more of it’s dps-potential than SV. The spreadsheet cannot model this, it simply doesn’t take any movement into consideration. In the end, with high enough gear, and played by a skilled person, MM will still outperform SV. But this is not as easy and obvious as the spreadsheet suggests.

Which is the prompt for my final remark: The best gear in the world won’t help you much if you don’t know what you’re doing. A tank who can’t hold aggro because he doesn’t use the right abilities to generate threat is a bad tank, no matter how excellent his gear is. And if he gets that right, he’ll still be responsible for wiping the raid, if he doesn’t move out of the Lich King’s Defile… In the end, to beat the most difficult encounters, you will need both the appropriate gear and skill.

Further reading:

Elitst Jerks Item Level Mechanics thread
WoWwiki Item Level article
Warcraft Hunters Union Armor Pen Rating and Armor Pen Cap (for Hunters, but also generally interesting)
Maintankadin Paladin tanking 101 (with details about diminishing returns)

Caveat lector:

With the release of the Cataclysm expansion, many of these mechanics will change dramatically, most likely rendering this guide completely obsolete.

Discussion is open here!

Hello there. I have been seeing lots of Warriors around in wrong talent builds, gemming and bad ability priorities. Thought a small guide for Fury Warrior dps wouldnt go bad for this situation.

Talent Build

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#LG0G0fhZGxc0E0u0eRVzAo:omG

As shown on this link there is a basic Warrior Dps build. It includes Booming Voice for extra duration of prefered shout + full commanding presence for better effects.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#LG0G0fhZhxfoy0u0eRVzAo:omGoz

And this link is the build i use for more raid utility. As it is impossible to do 25 man raids without a Retribution Paladin nowadays i have moved my 2 points from Booming Voice to Unbridled Wrath for abit more rage and I took one point from Commanding Presence to get Piercing Howl. Piercing Howl is really usefull in Icecrown Citadel. Especially in 25 man raids you can use it in fights like Lich King, Valithra Dreamwalker and Deathbringer Saurfang.

About Glyphs : Glyph of Execution is slightly better to use than Glyph of Cleaving (except for Lich King 25 man fight where you can cleave all 3 Valkyrs) Glyph of Heroic Strike and Glyph of Whirlwind are the other glyphs.

Ability Priorities

Well I cannot say we have a rotation and lots of abilities.
Best way to faceroll through our dps is macroing Heroic Strike to Bloodthirst and Whirlwind. (Same for cleave for AoE fights and situations)

As we can forget about our Heroic Strike spam its about what to use now. Bloodthrist and Whirlwind on every cooldown, Slam on Bloodsurge procs. When boss is under %20 and rage is not a problem you can use Execute when all other abilities are on cooldown and Bloodsurge isnt procced.

Timing Cooldowns well is essential too.

Stats

Your highest stat priority should be Armor Penetration Rating untill Cap, which is %100. You get %1 Armor Penetration for 14 Armor Penetration Rating. Each Attack Power we have gets more important as we get more Armor Penetration.

After Armor Penetration it is Strength which gives us our Attack Power. We can go for this as far as we go as there is no Diminishing Returns on it is best stat to go for.

Critical Strike Chance is really nice for us. To keep Deep Wounds up on bosses and of course for damage. But gemming for this start is really useless. As we get more critical strike rating the less dps increase it gives to us as number increases. Also it is RNG that if we will crit or not, we can go really high numbers on critical strike chance but with some lack of luck you might not get the percentage of critical strike chance you should get.

Haste is a really nice stat I can say. Its not bad to get if we cant get any of the stats listed above, but gemming for it is useless.

With our 3% hit talent we only need 5% hit. If you are an Alliance player who raids with Draeneis you only need %4.

And 26 Expertise needed to avoid enemies dodging our attacks.

Gemming

This is where most people get confused but it is as basic as other stuff i can say.

Lets start with meta.

Relentless Earthsiege Diamond

Nightmare Tear for a Blue Socket

As you can activate this meta with a Nightmare Tear (preferably Nightmare Tear is plugged in a Blue Socket slot) and with Blessing of Kings it gives as much critical strike as Chaotic Skyflare Diamond

Red Gems are our best friends. Untill we get around 1400 Armor Penetration Rating (with is %100 Armor Penetration value) It is a good idea to ignore Yellow and Blue Sockets and their bonuses untill you reach it. Our lovely Arpen Gem is;

Fractured Cardinal Ruby for All slots.

After you reach 1400 armor penetration or you are really close to it (Try to get as close as possible) you should start gemming for Strength. Never gem your gear with pure Critical Strike rating. Diminishing Returns on the Critical Strike rating will make your dps suffer from it and there is always a chance that it will crit or not, even with %50 or more critical strike chance.

Gems suggested after reaching 1400 Arpen Rating;

Bold Cardinal Ruby for Red Gem Slots

Inscribed Ametrine for Yellow Gem Slots

Bold Cardinal Ruby for Blue Gem Slots

Stamina is wasted stat for Warriors. As we have highest hp by default.

Gems can be used if we lack abit of hit/expertise stats which are

Precise Cardinal Ruby

Rigid King’s Amber

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to call me a noob if i made a mistake. Hopefully i have been helpful to you.

Discussion is open here!

Discussion is open here!

Raid extensions is a fairly new feature which was a bit odd to get used to but in the end proved fairly valuable for various guilds and probably not suprisingly to different types of guilds aswell rather than just one particular type.

In smaller self-paced guilds it offered them a chance to progress through content several weeks in row by extending the lockouts rather than getting stuck on same boss every week due to lack of actual raid hours avaliable. While this might seem like a fairly silly way to use it due to lack of gear upgrades that you miss out on – well gear doesn’t help you anything if you simply don’t get past X boss any given week due to time restraint does it?

To other guilds the extensions proved invaluable as progress tool to keep going at the boss they were close to kill just before lockout. Extending in such cases proved to be a good idea on some bosses at least and for us in particular it proved useful for our first Lich King 25 Normal Kill as we were really close to kill on Tuesday evening, we extended on Wednesday and preety much two-shotted it, which would likely not happen on next day if we didn’t extend due to potential lack of setup, lack of focus after few hours of raid already or other issues that threat quality and integrity of raiding.

For others again it proved amazing in another way by basically offering a way to avoid doing whole instance if you are interested in just one boss that you want to work for. At release for example this method could be used for guilds who wanted to do Yogg-Saron with particular watcher numbers be it 1 or 0, to basically just extend lockout any amount of weeks in row and just bash themselves against it without having to reclear full Ulduar for it.

While surely this might strike one as very robust way of doing it, it is very effective way to master and encounter as we all know people have different »speed« when it comes to learning encounters, some might need to see it just once to get it, while others might require several kills to fully understand the encounter.

In other ways I’ve seen it used simply out of lazyness, weekly one week is Razorscale so invididuals can’t be bothered to reclear Flame Leviathan in case next weekly quest is Ignis.

Lazy, lazy people! Not good!

Have you noticed any other use for it? If so please let us know in the discussion sections on the forums below.

Discussion is open here!

With minor tactical adjustments and a bit more steady hand on phase transition we’ve successfully killed him for another wing clear 2/3 wings down now with only Sindragosa Hardmode remaining before we’re in the reachzone for 25 man drakes. 10/12 in total and looking forward to continue hopefully to clear all content avaliable before the expansion comes out

Congratulations to all involved and well done!

I’ll start of by saying this post will be quite full of generalizations. This means that this doesn’t apply to every single person and neither it will be completely objective, in fact I would say it will be strongly biased and very subjective. So take everything here with a grain of salt and see it as a voiced opinion based on average observation through time. There are raiders in each group that I will describe that could fit into the other ones but generally I noticed few particular things which I thought I’d share.

Vanilla Raiders
While experience is a very strong point in player skill it doesn’t make a good player. Many players who are playing since Vanilla and were raiding then are in comparison to other raiders quite bad today, while others show clear mastery of game from start to end – this is something you can apply to either of the groups but can be particulary attributed to people who were activly raiding in Vanilla already.

The main strength which seems to be lacking in TBC / WotLK induced raiders seems to be willpower. Generally this are people who are reliable and experienced. By reliable I mean that they will be present on majority of the raids regardless of time, difficulty, atmosphere at the time or odds of success. Generally this people have very strong grasp of realism with omnipresent feeling of eternal optimism.

The learning curve in vanilla was quite more controlled which I personally believe made this players less susceptible to weaknesses such as : Burning Out, Boredom, Raid Wipe Resistance, Focus.

What I understand under this definitions are that Vanilla Players seem to burn out alot slower than others, while boredom seems alot more present (especially today) they will tackle it faster by either making themselves busy or ignoring it in hope for better and less boring tommorow.

The biggest difference is the Raid Wipe Resistance and Focus – some, if not majority of this players understand the concept of learning better than others, which means they are prepared to wipe quite alot more to master fights than others. The lack of aids and information routes which are here today lead to better raiding. Even at later stages raiding was innovative as raid leaders had to invent tactics on the go from observation as there was complete lack of information flow beside conventional mouth to mouth discussions. Very few websites had few guides but they were not publicly known.

In average I would say raids were not only longer but also had more focus on teaching players how to play better rather than challenging them. Which then as new tiers of difficulty came out obviously moved from learning to challenge – something which seems to be missing heavily in later expansions. Due to longer raids which could last up to 8 hours, this people generally can focus for longer periods of time while raiding, aswell and make less mistakes when under pressure or frustrated.

However the actual quality I believe depends heavily on how far on the learning curve they came during Vanilla themselves. Players who raided everything including Naxxramas tend to be quite alot better “ironed out” than those who only did minor bits here and there. Regardless of each players who were there and tried raiding on any level in vanilla recieved good foundation to build upon which was then either used or wasted.

TBC Era Raiders
When first fresh raiders popped up they were met with much despise from older and more experienced players and had problems with both fitting in and learning to become better for themselves, however while I think this pushed quite a few people away from raiding at the time it also forced few of them to fight hard to show that they are capable of achieving greatness themselves. Sadly the learning curve was quite steep and they had a hard time doing so naturally which however in the end made them better players if they made it though.

Karazhan 10 Man raid to Gruul’s Lair or Magtheridon’s Lair which were 25 mans was a big jump which not only was unexpected it killed many guilds and frustrated even the most experienced players which often blamed their failures to the “new guys”, even though it wasn’t their fault. In the end when encounters were tuned a bit better in placement of the learning curve players started beating more of the content and while attunements were quite painful to organize and manage they were perfect way of making sure people are ready for what is waiting for them in the next tier of raiding. There were lots of issues with attunement but that will be discussed in a future article.

Wonderfully orchestrated instances of SSC (Serpentshrine Caverns) and TK (Tempest Keep – The Eye) really pushed raiders to learn their game better and tactical masterpieces of fights Lady Vashj and Kael’thas really shaped players into proper raiders, especially those who managed to kill them early before the nerfs.

People who managed through those found themselves well prepared for Black Temple and Hyjal Summit aswell with many unique fights and mechanics which we haven’t seen before (Gorefiend, RoS) and the survivability battle which was Archimonde really pushed the players to learn not to only kill stuff efficiently but also to survive.

Sunwell was extremely hard and was really meant to be taken on by only the best which all the previous instances have prepared them for extremely well although sadly class stacking prevailed over skill in particular but nevertheless it was a wonderful expansion which made a new set of raiders with different mentality to vanilla ones – Fighters, but with bit less strength when it came to burning out, focus but quite willing to wipe long times still.

WotLK Freshers
When raiding began the first encounters and instances seemed quite … underwhelming as they were very simple to those who raided before, while they might have been harder for newcomers I don’t know the general atmosphere was very happy to be raiding again but then a bit dissapointed. Malygos and the difficulty scaling with drakes offered new mechanics however which were good addition to experience – however the 3 Drakes fights was also one of the better fights and very nicely tuned.

Sadly the fresh players however somehow seemed to get stuck in earlier instances already or never really bothered to try the concepts of more drakes as it seemed just too much hassle. I for one could not understand one’s reluctancy to challenge themselves but it seemed that the newest raider trend was to be very passive.

This concerned me deeply as I knew that you need to rely on new generation raiders to fill your spots in raids too and I was worried of severe quality drop in case this would come to be true. I was pleasently surprised by Ulduar though which proved to break all my fears as it was just what we needed, wonderful raid, amazing instance, well tuned encounters and new interesting and challenging hardmode concept. Well placed, and new players while very unprepared from their shaky passing in 3.0 had to really learn their game when going through Ulduar however the early nerfs kinda diminished the required play quality which was slightly disappointing but nevertheless overall a huge thumbs up to Blizzard on Ulduar.

Then ToC came … the horror. Wonderful concept, horribly bad execution. Normal modes being so ridicilously easy full instance can be pugged. Players decided to skip Ulduar completely and just farm ToC and go from bad Naxxramas players to really bad ToC players as … they skipped the learning curve of Ulduar which was the only instance so far in WotLK which made you learn extra things thus making you improve yourself (as often they only did Naxxramas and skipped Sartharion with more drakes or Malygos completely).

I could not understand why this was done but if nothing else it made easier to bring up alts to raiding level (however dropping viability of new recruits to almost non-exsistent as most seemed to be very clueless) and ToC Hardmodes especially Anub’arak proved masterpiece of a fight once more which was fresh and nice but raiding 4 modes – 10,25,10HM,25HM proved to be a really bad concept and was luckily scrapped for ICC.

Icecrown Citadel was very interesting and wonderful instance to go through the first time however the virtual blocking to prolong content and limited tries on normal bosses from start was really frustrating. Having fully open instance with limited hardmodes or bigger gear requirements for hardmodes to be done would have been a better move I think. But I can understand partially why it was done the way it was done. However it also lead to stagnation and stagnation means drop of quality and quitting from individuals – mainly the freshers. And sadly the freshers also not only lacked skill (if they skipped Ulduar or everything even), they also lacked focus beyond first 2-3 hours in a raid, were not reliably showing up for raids, and avoided the wipe raids if they could as wiping more than couple of times seemed to be effecting them bad and got them bored easily. So very few players from the new generation actually had the chance to become good players, and the number would be even lower if the effort wasn’t put into “raising” few players by attempting to teach them the mechanics, dynamics and everything else slowly and painfully.

While I think Wrath of the Lich King is amazing expansion and move forward I believe the learning curve and quality of raiders overall from it is very subpar compared to previous expansions.

So what do you think? Have you noticed the same phenomenon, or something different alltogether? Do you think its an issue that is isolated to few realms or more worldwide? Share your ideas and comments on the discussion of the thread

Discussion is open here!

So, recently I’ve found a fair amount of priests asking me for advice, and that a few people either ask me about my talent spec, or generally comment on it, so I thought I’d write this, as a bit of a insight to my spec, and why I have picked the talents that I currently have.

My current talent spec is very different to the holy priest ‘cookie-cutter’ kind of spec, you can see it here. Firstly, you should know it’s aimed towards maximum raid/AoE healing, I personally, hardly ever tank-heal as holy, we have paladins for that, we’d only need to cover the tanks if our paladins can’t heal for some reason. This spec really works best for ICC, especially hardmodes. If I was needed to focus more on tanks, I would go disc, that’s why I raid with two healing specs.

Rather than going over the full spec, which would be rather pointless, since some of the talents just take common sense to spec, I’ll talk about the more ‘abnormal’ parts, and cover some of the questions I’m asked often.

• No Divine Fury or Improved Healing– There’s a few reasons behind this, the main one would be, how often would a holy priest in ICC use Greater Heal? Hardly ever, really rare that we’d need to cast it. Secondly, if we do, it’s already heavily hasted from Serendipity, so reducing the cast time is meh. So in short, spending up to 8 points to improve a spell that I’d don’t use often – Not worth it.

• Spell Warding So we need some ‘filler’ to reach other talents, I take Spell Warding due to the fact that our current progress is hard modes, where everything hits for insane amounts, this talent provides a nice chunk of survivability. You could argue to spend 5 points in it, instead of Desperate Prayer, but I personally like to have the extra cool down for if I need to keep myself alive while I need to move.

• Healing Prayers I see a lot of priests skip this, I don’t understand why anyone would. A massive amount of our healing in raids, comes from the two spells that this talent covers. Prayer of Healing is very costly on mana, two points in this talent reduces the cost by 370 – a massive amount. Prayer of Mending is pretty much our most efficient spell, this talent makes it even more efficient. What’s not to love with this talent? – A must have in my opinion.

• Blessed Resilience Now this talent gets me no end of whispers along the lines of “Lol why you spec’d PvP talent?” It only takes a quick bit of math to see why it’s worth taking, and why I consider it part of a holy raid/AoE talent spec.

I’ll use Circle of Healing as a example here: With my current spell power level (about 4000 self-buffed) 3 points in this talent, will add ~200 per Circle of Healing hit, which is ~1200 total (For glyphed CoH). So in short, it’s only 3 points, to improve the spells that use the most – really worth it.

• No Empowered Healing This is another thing that I get lots of questions/comments about, Greater Heal, as I mentioned above, and Flash Heal to a lesser extent, are spells that we just don’t use a lot, and even when we do, considering current gear levels plus the ever increasing ICC buff, the spells already heal for massive amounts. So this talent really just ends as over-heal. Five points to improve spells that aren’t use often/don’t need improving? So not worth it, invest these points elsewhere, like Blessed Resilience/Test of Faith, you get much more useful throughput that way.

• Test of Faith I see many holy priests skipping this talent, in my opinion, it’s a must-have, especially for hard modes, it’s a pretty big increase to your healing, when it’s needed the most, at crucial points.

• Inner Focus Yeah, okay, it’s rather useless since the five-second-rule changes/etc, but I still spec it out of habit. Why? – To macro along with Divine Hymn, it offsets the massive mana-cost of the hymn, and what most people don’t realise is, the 25% crit-chance stays for the entire channel of the hymn. So I find it a nice improvement to a spell which is wonderful for crucial/’Oh crap!’ moments.

I think that is about all I feel is worth talking about talent wise, the rest are mostly self-explanatory.

I will quickly mention my glyph choices though:

Glyph of Circle of Healing and Glyph of Prayer of Healing these are the best two for raid healing, best increase of throughput.
There aren’t really many choices worth considering other than these.

Glyph of Guardian Spirit For raiding, and especially hard modes, I see this glyph as a ‘must-have’ It makes our already great cool down, even better and more useable, since with the glyph, you can use it more proactively. Using it more of when someone needs more healing, rather than when they might die, thus getting a shorter time before you can use it again, a really good choice.

That’s about all I can think of at the moment, if you have any questions about this, or in general, feel free to reply to this on the forums, or poke me in-game. Thanks for reading, hope I didn’t bore you too much.

Discussion is open here!

PALADIN

”Blade with whom i lived, blade with whom now i die, serve right and justice one last time, seek one last heart of evil, still one last life of pain, cut well old friend, and then farewell”

A Paladin is holy knight, a paragon of virtue and goodness. A Paladin is a warrior devoted his life to a duty, defend the weak, give aid to poor and bring hope to the hopeless. Given that, the term Holy Knight is made of two words, holy and knight. The epitome of honor and valor, Paladins excel in martial combat while employing divine magic to enhance their abilities and strike down their enemies. By Invoking both protective, offensive and healing magic, the Paladin can survive battle that would crumble of those of lesser resolve.

Even though Paladin order was first founded with aim to fight against the Savage Orcish Horde, being enhanced by Holy Light gives Paladins of Azeroth, special abilities to crush Undead and demons. Paladins are the virtuous defenders of the weak and tireless, and unfaltering enemies of the Undead and Demons. Paladins in Azeroth mixes elements of warriors and holy clerics. They are tough melee fighters but also wield healing powers of holy light. Paladins are usually fanatical in their cause, its often told; a Paladin detects the evil first, smites it second and then questions it last.

HOLY LIGHT

”Fear not young one, for this crusader shall not taste death. In life Bridenbrad was the bearer of great deeds. Now, in passing he shall only taste paradise. The Light does not abandon it’s champions”

Followers of the Religion of Light does not worship any gods, instead they seek the perfection and truth within themselves. Humans and Draenei are the main exercisers of the Holy Light, Dwarves and High Elves following them with lesser numbers. However order of the holy light has recently returned to Blood Elf community as well. Light has followers among almost every race in Azeroth nowadays.

Exercise of Holy Light, is a seeking of virtue rather then a simple worshipping.

The Holy Light teaches that there is a connection between the self and the universe. This connection manifests as what we feel through both senses and emotions.When a person is moved, through seeing something breathtaking or feeling love for another, that emotion connects him to the universe. Experiencing the emotion ensures that he exists, as something within him felt the emotions or processed the sensual awareness. Because he exists, so must the universe that gave him that feeling. From there, he can act upon the universe, causing more changes to create feeling in others. Thus, the followers of Holy Light seek to make the world a better place by being true to their own emotions.

The next step in recognizing this connection between the self and the universe is developing the goodness
within and without. If one wishes for happiness, one must work to better the universe to make others happy.
Experiencing the glory and beauty of the world will in turn tap into the inner beauty and glory within one’s soul.
However, giving in to greed, despair, and unhappiness will only darken the universe. The Holy Light is the glory of the
universe reflected upon the soul and mirrored back onto itself.” Wowwiki

Followers of Light, often believe existence of a higher being, and it’s been seen several times them mentioning the word God, however exercise of Holy Light doesn’t involve any form of worshipping to a god. Since there is no entity of Light described in any writings. Except the race of beings known as Naaru which are a bodied form of Holy Light. Naaru are a source of Light and center of Draenei belief of Light. However they are not the only source of light. Draenei followers of the Prophet Velen are given knowledge and powers by these beings.

While studies of Holy Light does not mention a specific definiton of hell and heaven, idea of paradise and hell are often mentioned by Holy Light practitioners. The Church of Holy Light was founded in Eastern Kingdoms, located in Lordaeron effecting both Lordaeron and Quel’Thalas and spreading to whole continent. It is now located in Stormwind, mainly in Cathedral of Stormwind. It’s current leader is Archbishop Benedictus. Archbishop is assited by a council of Bishops.

THE THREE VIRTUES

The philosophy of the Holy Light boils down to the three teachings, called the Three Virtues. These virtues — respect, tenacity and compassion — are each defined into a principle and a lesson.

Respect

The first virtue taught is respect. While the Holy Light teaches that awareness of the self and the universe is a goal, one must also see the connection between others and the universe. Destroying other’s happiness and severing other’s connections with the universe is not serving the world’s well being, and therefore not your own. The practitioners of the Holy Light are not naive, however, and understand that trial, conflict, war, and suffering do happen; but they strive to make the universe a better place in spite of these hindrances.

Tenacity

The second virtue is tenacity. The adherence to this virtue is, incidentally, the part of training under the Holy Light that weeds out the unfaithful, as true dedication takes years. Fresh-faced acolytes often lose hope and the true meaning of the Holy Light when they realize that it takes a lifetime to serve the philosophy. The world is much bigger than one lone soul; and while the world can change a soul in a day, it takes much more time to change the world. Only through tenacity can a servant of the Holy Light hope to affect the universe. If some young students feel like this is an impossible task, others take heart in the realization that if you truly believe there is a connection between the self and the universe, one cannot help but affect the other, no matter the size. Affecting the world can include anything from teaching and instilling hope in others to joining with other like-minded individuals to work together to create a bigger change.

Compassion

After the first two concepts are mastered, the student can take on the final virtue: compassion. The connection between the self and the universe is strong, but it still is only one connection. If a follower of the Light serves another to increase his happiness, his bond with the universe grows stronger. The happiness he receives by helping someone also strengthens himself and the universe, and he is able to affect the universe even more.

Compassion is perhaps the most powerful — and yet most dangerous — virtue.
If someone is too compassionate, he can give help where none is needed — or wanted. This oversight can hinder one’s growth and happiness. For example, one may help another with a seemingly impossible quest, when such a quest is not actually out of the abilities of the one making the attempt. Thus, Compassion (However well intentioned) has resulted in that person’s inability to grow as the quest was essentially “done for them”, hindering their growth and happiness.

Some helpers can be awkward and do more harm than good with their actions, increasing the suffering and unhappiness in the world. A well meaning follower of the Light may rush to the aid of an adventurer(s) and wind up gaining too much interest of those attacking, and thus force those they try to help to rush to the follower’s aid.
This is why compassion is taught last; only the wise and those fully understanding compassion may identify who is truly in need and who can grow on their own ( Wowwiki)

CODE OF PALADINS

A Paladin must be of good allignment at all costs, otherwise all powers given to him/her by light will be taken back, as soon as he commits an act of evil or injustice. A Paladin who violates this code will no longer be a paladin. That being said, to be able to wield powers of holy light a paladin only has to truely believe his cause is right and just. Light will continue to serve him even if his path is actually wrong, as long as he believes he is just. Makes faith most powerfull element of paladin code.

KNIGHTS OF THE SILVER HAND

Alonsus Faol is the founder of the 1st Paladin order in Warcraft lore. You can see Faol’s statue in Cathedral Quarter of the Stormwind city and Faol is buried near Scarlet Monastery in Tirisfal Glades at Faol’s Rest. There is also a Chapel in Stratholme named after him, Alonsus Chapel, birthplace of the Paladinhood. When Orcish invasion of Azeroth has begun, Alonsus Faol directed his clerics in Holy Order of the Northshire Clerics to battle. Even though they are wielded with healing and destructive powers of the Holy Light they suffered heavy loses in battlefield and war is eventually lost, remaining of the order has fled to the Northrend. Faol has recruited former clerics of the order and some noble Knights to the restored order, this time trained more in physical waves and arts of war. First 5 paladins were Uther The Lightbringer, Saidan Dathrohan, Tirion Fordring, Gavinrad the Dire and General Turalyon. Uther being the 1st of paladins, appointed in Alonsus Chapel in Stratholme; making it founding place of the Order of the Silver Hand. Paladins have became a insturmental on winning of the war, a devastating and fearsome force for the Alliance. Order was run from Silver Hand Bastion in Stratholme.

King Terenas Menethil, Prince Arthas Menethil, High General Abbendis, Sir Maximus Adams, Aelmar The Vanquisher, Arathor the Redeemer, Cathela The Seeker, Dagren the Orcslayer, Commander Duron, Highlord Bolvar Fordragon, Highlord Taelan Fordring, Katherine The Pure, Morgan Ladimore, Alexandros Mograine The Ashbringer, Sir Zeliek and Highlord Leoric Von Zeldig are some of the notable members of the order.

Unfortunately Order was destroyed, when Prince Arthas killed Uther the Lightbringer. Ironically Arthas himself was a member of the order, before his dark reborn.

The Knights of the Silver Hand, grew out of humanity’s culture, and its greatest heroes and fiercest proponents are humans. Ironforge Dwarves possess the toughness needed to withstand the onslaught of the paladins’ many enemies. After the destruction of the Order some of the Paladins formed The Scarlet Crusade, a zealous order that hunts undead and trying to reclaim their lost lands. After the Inflataration of Balnazaar in the order, betrayal of Renault Mograine and corruption of the Ashbringer paladins who broke away formed the Argent Dawn.

Tirion Fordring reformed the Order and took his place as Highlord of the Order after murder of his son Highlord Taelan Fordring ( whom was the Highlord of The Scarlet Crusade ). He has been trying to save his son from twisted order of Scarlet Crusade by remembering him his past. Unfortunately it resulted in death of Taelon. ( You can see this event Quest named In Dreams, at Western Plaguelands ) After the Battle of Light’s Hope Chapel, Highlord Tirion Fordring united the of the Order of the Silver Hand with the Argent Dawn creating The Argent Crusade.

STORY OF THE ASHBRINGER

During the assault on Blackrock Spire in the Second War, Mograine of the Silver Hand witnessed an orcish warlock channeling magic through a dark orb. After the warlock’s death, Mograine went to claim it for the Alliance, but his hand was badly mangled as soon as he touched it. Though describing the orb as the “living embodiment of shadow,” he was still curious as to what power it might hold and kept it in an iron chest.

Mograine kept the orb a secret until the Scourge reached Lordaeron. He revealed it to several other members of the Silver Hand, suggesting that they search for the orb’s polar opposite – a manifestation of the Light itself – to be used against the impending undead holocaust. Mograine’s peers, appalled at the sight of this dark crystal, attempted to destroy it with a holy spell. Unexpectedly, the crystal absorbed the spell and became its antithesis, the very crystal of pure light that Mograine suggested moments before, and even restored life to his mangled hand. It was decided that from this crystal a weapon would be forged that would smite the undead with such power that only a cloud of ash would remain in its wake.

Under the command of Saidan Dathrohan, Mograine and Fairbanks traveled to Ironforge to ask King Magni Bronzebeard to forge the mighty blade. Magni, having only just learned of his brother’s apparent demise, was more than willing to craft a weapon to battle the undead, and described it as the greatest creation wrought by his hand. —The Ashbringer.
Mograine and the other former Knights of the Silver Hand banded together to continue the war against the Lich King. Alexandros was appointed Highlord and the Ashbringer was the Order greatest weapon. However, the blade caught the attention of Kel’Thuzad. Striking a deal with Balnazzar, who had covertly taken control of the Order by possessing Dathrohan and wished to use it against the Lich King, the two planned to kill him.( There is evidence prooving Dathrohan have led Scarlet Crusader’s elite force Crimson Elite to a raid in Naxxramas but failed. However it’s believed Balnazaar whom was in possession of his body made the deal with Kel’Thuzad in same raid )

To do so, Balnazzar corrupted Mograine’s son Renault and had him lead his father into a trap. Renault led his father and High Inquisitor Fairbanks to Stratholme where an army of undead waited for them. Renault fled and Fairbanks, being the first to fall, was trapped under the pile of undead corpses. Mograine stood alone against the undead, yet managed to destroy all sent at him. In fatigue, Alexandros dropped his blade. Renault returned and killed Mograine with his own sword, corrupting the Ashbringer. Unable to use the blade, Renault left it with his father’s corpse.
However, Kel’Thuzad raised the Ashbringer’s corpse turning him into a death knight of the Scourge, and reclaimed his blade. Kel’Thuzad took Mograine back to Naxxramas to have him serve as one of the Four Horsemen.
Making his way back to the Scarlet Monastery, Fairbanks told the tale of betrayal to anyone who would listen. Those who believed him broke away from the Crusade to found the Argent Dawn. Fairbanks was subsequently murdered by the remaining crusaders for his blasphemy.

Corrupted Ashbringer was wielded by Alexandros Mograine in Naxxramas, where he resided after being resurrected as a Death Knight. Players who obtained the weapon from him used to be able to take the weapon to Scarlet Monastey to see a special event, where Alexandros Mograine’s ghost returning to place and killing his son for his betrayal, resurrecting Fairbanks. When Naxxramas returned to Northrend after betrayal of Inigo Montoy, Alexandros Mograine was not there anymore, because his other son Darion Mograine used Corrupted Ashbringer to kill himself in order to free his father’s soul. After the event Darion Mograine has become a Death Knight as well, however he broke away from Lich King’s will after Battle of Light’s Hope Chapel and now leading the Order of Ebon Blade Knights. An Order of Death Knights who seek revenge from Scourge. At the Battle of Light’s Hope Chapel, where Darion attacked the last resistance point of Light in Plaguelands commanding Scourge Armies and Death Knight’s of the Ebon Blade, Tirion Fordring have confronted him. At this moment Darion’s father made his appereance making him remember his past and break away from will of the Lich King. After that The Lich King intervened into the situation, seeing this now powerless Darion threw the Corrupted Ashbringer to Tirion. Tirion wielded Ashbringer and purified it; with now purified Ashbringer he attacked Lich King, wounding him and forcing to flee. After the victory, Tirion united the Argent Dawn and the Order of The Silver Hand under name The Argent Crusade and woved to defeat Lich King at all costs. Darion pledged his Knights of The Ebon Blade to the cause at same time.

In the Unsealed Chest taken from the Lich King after he is defeated by a party where one of its members carries Shadowmourne, an item known as Alexandros’ Soul Shard is found, containing the spirit of the Ashbringer.

Discussion is open here!

In this part of guide I focus on threat also known as aggro. In standard user interface you have threat info at NPC (non player character) icon and NPC info. It’s not main topic for healer but it’s thing that can kill healer if he have no idea about it. Damage dealers use omen or similar add-on to show threat bars to see how much threat left to overaggro tank. You won’t use it in this way but you should get one of those add-ons.

Info from wowwiki.com:
Threat is a measure of an NPC’s aggression towards a player. Each NPC has a threat table, and the character at the top of the list is usually the target of its aggression. In-game, this is known as having Aggro from that particular NPC. The NPC will attack that character if possible, unless another character manages to change the NPC’s target.

Healer get threat by healing. Problem with it is that other team members: damage dealer and tanks get threat on targets that they attack. Healers get threat on all targets so if some NPC is not attacked by tank or DPSer(damage dealer) it will attack healer. Even when mob is attacked healing stack threat on all mobs so healer can overaggro tank on some NPC if tank focus only on 1 target. It’s large problem in 2 situations. First when some new NPC join in middle of combat. They have clean threat table so healer will be first target of their attack. Second situation is when pulled group is spread and have casters in it. Tanks most of times will aggro first NPC and melee and far caster NPC will attack healer.

It’s easy to notice healers threat by finishing big heal when tank walk in to mob group (body pull) – never do that. You should be extra careful at start of combat with trash (NPC groups in instance). You shouldn’t cast heal over time spells (pre-HoT) on tank before combat at this fights because when tank will attack one NPC other can go for you. You should cast heal over time spells on tank before combat only at boss fights where is only one opponent. One of your healing tactics can be to start castomg big heal when tank pull trash so even when he get big amount of damage your big heal will cover it and tank will have time to aggro all mobs. To this method you can add “stop cast” mechanic so you start casting and when you see that damage on tank is low you cancel casting by pressing escape or just move and start it again.

Attack on healer can be fatal but healer can do something about it. When you ever get aggro on melee mobs you should run to tank or run next to tank so NPC will meet tank on their way. Most of tank have Area of effect (AoE) attacks and he can use it when NPC will pass pulling mobs from healer. When NPC caster attack you and you have space you should move opposite way where caster is (most of cases it is back). Every spell have range so if you move back caster will need move forward and it can meet tank.

Being under fire is not reason to panic it’s part of game if you want to play you need to control it. To show an example of how unusual it is I will tell a story. In time of “Love is in the Air” world event there is event boss in Shadowfang Keep – Trio of Crown Chemical Company. With my Shaman I found random group of players and move to Keep. While we ware moving I asked about knowledge of tactic. Got no response so I said Tank take first boss, I’ll tank second boss and after first is down he taunt off me. They laughed and say I can’t tank it because I’m healer. So I said I give them 100g each if I can’t do it. Sadly one of them saw my guild tag and back off from bet. Bosses at this encounter don’t do much damage physical but high magical damage. I stood next to second boss at start of combat I cast Riptide, then Healing Wave on self and chain heal on tank making boss attack me. With resistance pot you get before boss I got small damage that I could easy heal. Tank don’t get high damage too so it made fight easy in heal overall.

Hard part to learn at beginning is counter your natural reaction of running away. When you do it you will pull NPC out of tank range (abilities or screen view) and he can’t do or will do nothing about it. Your first reaction should be run to tank. Some class can use their abilities to. Best here is holy priest which can use Fade and lose threat at all targets for some time. Healers can use crowd control abilities too. Priest can use shackle on undead caster NPC. This single target crowd control abilities give nice amount of threat. If it will be used on target outside of combat area it will disable mob for some time if not it will make NPC more angry at you. Priest have Psychic Scream ability which fear all mobs around but it shouldn’t be used. This ability can shift situation from bad to tragic. Feared NPC can run into next mob pack and trigger them to join in combat. Restoration Shaman have Wind Shear witch lower threat on target but It can be used only on one target. You can use Hex to change mob into harmless frog but you need to do it out of melee cleave or AoE attacks of ranged DPSers. Grounding Totem and Earthbind Totem can help survive catching aggro. Grounding Totem can take one of caster spells. Earthbind Totem can be dropped to slow down mobs so healer can go to tank unhurt. Restoration druid can use Nature’s Grasp while running to tank so melee mobs that will manage to attack you will be rooted in place. For caster NPC druid can use Cyclone – It’s short but it can be use in range of AoE spells and melee cleave. Read about all your spells so you can put them in your play but just remember to not overdo with crowd control.

It is said that crowd control will be more in need in Cataclysm than now so it’s worth to practice it.

Discussion is open here!

During discussions that seemed to have sprouted around lately was the topic of time spent raiding, and how people seem to decide for raiding guilds based on the raiding times in amounts of hours. As with most discussions, opinions were very varied so I was surprised to see certain viewpoints so I will try to share my views here.

One concept that was personally to me – very foreign seemed to be »Set In Stone« raiding which means we would raid for example 3 raids a week, each lasting 4 hours every week, regardless of what happens. (12 hour raiding schedule per week). Why I was surprised was mainly because, I’ve yet never found myself in position where I could say raiding is something as mundane and set in stone as this would imply.

I’ve noticed that our raiding times vary from as little as 4 hours per week in the farm phases to up to 16-20 hours per week in progress time. At this very moment in time (9/12 HM in ICC25), farming those 9 hardmodes + doing Putricide, Lich King and Sindragosa on normal modes takes 6 hours in a week. We sometimes decide to spend 4 extra hours on trying a new hardmode but overall raiding at the moment doesn’t take more than 8-10 hours a week.

This was different in Ulduar where we preety much raided 16 hours+ steady simply because people were avaliable and wanted to but we have plenty of people in the guild who raid 2-3 times a week regularly.

What I’m trying to say is that I personally believe that Time Spent Raiding is a ever changing variable based on your capability to design your schedule, your ability to use the knowledge gained effectivly and planning raids ahead.

Pushing raids with non optimal setup has proven to be the biggest time waster which burn people out and make them less prone to continue raiding. Because not only is potentially lack of skill the problem which will go against you while defeating the boss, the encounters are tighly tuned with buffs and setups in mind. This means that you are basically adding an extra difficulty variable in the encounter which isn’t very helpful but sometimes you simply don’t have a choice.

I’ve noticed personally that people tend to be quite alot more active and willing when rested well, and motivated – so sometimes it is a better choice to not raid than to push an impossible raid. Or when you are wiping on same encounter hour after hour, some breaks inbetween or even delaying it until next week might be a better solution. Decisions when and how are obviously up to you though.

The other major time wasters on raids seem to be both ineffective ways of handling trash, too much control (as in being too careful), invididual or group slacking (people going afk repeatedly or in cycles on trash and or not contributing that little effort required to the raid), slow wipe recovery time (on progress raids) and poor loot distribution. This three things alone make the main difference in how much time you effectivly raid – actually spend on bosses and either farm or attempt to progress rather than … well waste time.

So the question is, how many hours per week do you actually raid? Try timing it once how much time in one specific raid is spent on particular things like clearing trash up to Plagueworks, or trash to Marrowgar, and so on and so forth. Then do the same for progress raids – how long does it take you for full group to run back, regroup, rebuff and stand ready for the next pull?

This works hand in hand with maintaining both raid focus, fun and in the end results. If this got you thinking – then realistically try to judge how well you fare in those particular problems compared to other guilds and if you believe it is a bigger problem for you than another guild – why is it so? How can you fix it?

In the next articles I will discuss two things – Differences between old-school and newborn raiders (Comparing Vanilla, TBC and WotLK born raiders) and a shorter article about Lockout Extensions and Multi-tier raiding (which will seem to be the hot old way of doing things come Cataclysm).

Discussion is open here!