“Through a Glass, Darkly” – the Resto Druid Way, Pt 3

Part 1 here – how to prepare

Part 2 here – the gauntlet

So here we are! Through the gauntlet, and ready to take on a huge dragon.

Couple things before starting. First, running up the ramp to where the void boss usually lives will start the event. Don’t go up until you’re ready.

Second, if you die and run back, there’s a nice glowy portal that brings you here.

Don’t try to run in manually, you can’t get across the chasm. After some period of time, the portal goes away and the gauntlet respawns. My guess is it’s something like an hour after you first clear the gauntlet – so yes, you might have to clear it again. It took me several days to beat the boss so I think I ran the gauntlet four times.

Now, take a minute to look at the fighting area. You’ve got the ramp and platform, and you can also run around in the area in front of the ramp a bit. Don’t get too far away or he’ll despawn and that sucks.

When you’re ready, go up the ramp. Tarecgosa goes with you, and then Thyrinar appears. He stuns Tarecgosa and now you get to fight him. he starts at 50% health, but that 50% is going to take a while.

Be in boomkin form when you go up the ramp. As soon as he goes active, pop Barkskin, dot him up, and blast away with cast spells. Be ready. When he flies over to the other side of the platform, get to the ramp. When he breathes fire, run down the ramp and don’t let the fire hit you. Hot yourself up at this time, and lay Wild Mushrooms near the bottom/middle of the ramp.

Pro tip: run down one side of the ramp. That way the fire only hits one side and you can go up. Also don’t cut to the other side as you leave the bottom of the ramp. The fire will follow you and block the bottom. Cut toward the same side the fire is on until the beam is off the ramp and then run in a circle around it to get to the other side.

After the fire is done, he starts shadow bolting you again, but more importantly an add spawns at the bottom of the ramp. These adds suck. But there’s a way to handle them. They spawn at the bottom of the ramp, run up the ramp, look around, and come hunting you. If you’re at the bottom, you can dot them up, blow your wild mushrooms, and they will either be dead or nearly there when they come back.

When you can’t kill them this way, they have a couple nasty abilities. A Silence, a Fire Nova, and a nasty melee hit that can daze you. Don’t forget about Entangling Roots or Nature’s Grasp as a way to get them off your back.

The adds spawn… fast. Somewhere I read every 30 seconds but I think it’s more for druids because we don’t have to worry about the self-heal thing that all the other classes have to deal with, thanks to us not having an offensive dispell.

Anyway. Add is dead. Run up the ramp – check your health! – and dot up the boss. Barkskin might be back up. Use it on cooldown. Watch for Starsurge procs, and use them when you can. Don’t hard cast Starsurge or use Starfire, they’re just too slow. You’re more likely going to be healing yourself.

The first two add spawns sync nicely with fire, but the third one seems to spawn a good ten seconds before the fire. Beware of that. After that I didn’t notice a pattern.

You might get your treants to help you with adds, or they might just sort of wander around shaking their fists at the boss.

The key to this fight is movement, and keeping your dots and hots going. And your mana up. Innervate early and often. Don’t let the fire hit you. Get the adds dead. Rinse, repeat.

My successful fight took 15 minutes and some of my attempts took nearly as long. This is a long, long fight. Be prepared. You will probably wipe a few times learning to handle it.

I actually had Reversion helping me toward the end by sitting over my shoulder and watching my procs and cooldowns – “Barkskin’s back, use it!” “Starsurge, starsurge!” “Add spawning, get the mushrooms down!” It helped me. If you have a friend or partner who plays WoW and can sit there with you, and you won’t kill him for this sort of thing, it can be really valuable to have another set of eyes.

(Rev editorial: It is a nasty little fight. Doing it in a spec you are not already pro with is hard. You have a lot of procs and abilities to use and the difference between Barkskin at a critical time or 15 seconds later because you did not notice it was off cooldown… well that is life or death on this fight. If you find you aren’t using some things you might just macro, grasphing roots, barkskin, starfall, and inervate to something you spam so you can’t possibly miss using them. Also be sure to space those mushrooms out as you run up or down the ramp. If you have spare mouse buttoms you might map the shrooms to a click. It makes them a lot easier to use while moving. Use those ramp runs to be dropping shrooms or healing, or both. If you are not used to shrooming remember this: it takes time to drop them and then blow them. Don’t aim them where the add is. Aim them where he is going to be in a little while. If you just space out all three around the center of the ramp it is almost always the right place.)

Doing this chain improved my boomkin skills a huge amount. I’m still a Resto druid, but now I can do some decent DPS, too.

If you’ve got any questions about any part of this chain, please feel free to ask me!

OH – don’t forget to click the clickable thing near Tarecgosa after Thyrinar is defeated, or you won’t get the quest completion, which would kind of suck.

Good luck, and have fun!

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“Through a Glass, Darkly” – the Resto Druid Way, Pt 2

Part 1 yesterday described how to get ready for this quest chain. If you haven’t read it yet and you’re an actual resto druid, go take a look. If you’re a holy priest or something, it might have some good advice for you too, just ignore the druid specific stuff.

Ok. So you’ve got your gear reforged, gemmed, enchanted; your buff food and flask; your keys bound to useful stuff; and your mage slave waiting around at the Nexus entrance to Arcane Brilliance you. Now what?

Enter the Nexus and you’ll see a big blue dragon there – our buddy Tarecgosa who we met outside. When you talk to her, she’ll start the gauntlet. Now, the gauntlet isn’t that bad, but I found it really confusing the first few times I ran it, so I’m going to do a whole walkthrough here.

Like everyone who runs the Nexus, she heads down the hallway to the left. Partway down she casts invisibility on you so the big sentry doesn’t see you. Keep with her and when you get to the room at the end of the hall, start attacking the big arcane sentry.

You’re going to dot him up with Moonfire and Insect Swarm, then look at the two doors you didn’t come in. A little magic-eater-dog thing is going to come in both doors. Guess what? Hibernate works on them! Pop Nature’s Grasp to root them when they touch you, and Hibernate one. Dot the other, then kill it with Wrath. Note, these guys have a really really nasty silence. Definitely keep one asleep while you kill the other.

Once dog 1 is dead, kill the other dog, then kill the sentry. All this time the sentry is doing an ability you will want to avoid. When there’s a big glowing ice patch under your feet, move. Get off it. Don’t stand there. It hurts.

If you get low, pop out of boomkin and drop a few heals on yourself.

When the sentry dies, Tarecgosa gives you a chance to rest – heal yourself up now – and then leads you down a corridor of mists. Stick with her and don’t stand in the mist.

You’re going to come down to the next corridor. In the normal Nexus, this is where the frozen people are. This time you’ve got another Sentry plus dog pair to handle. Just do it the same way as before. Hibernate one dog, kill the other, keep the Sentry dotted, heal yourself, kill the other dog, kill the sentry.

Tarecgosa will play with the Sentry while you kill the dogs.

Now that the sentry is dead, start heading down the corridor. Halfway down, this happens:

Yeah. Two big nasties. She freezes you and lies to them. They disappear and she runs ahead.

Now the first couple times this happened, I got really confused. See, there’s a slow effect on you after you come out of the ice, but you can more or less catch her at the end of the hallway. She runs up the next ramp and if you follow her, you’ll probably die, because things are coming up behind you to nom your face. Let her go on ahead, while you go to the end of this corridor and turn around to deal with the new threat: not two but three puppies. They spawn right where you were frozen and run for you.

See this image? This is what happens if you don’t move from where you were frozen. They spawn right there and you have no time to get set.

Hibernate one, pop your Nature’s Grasp, let one get rooted, and then move away and kill the third. They’ll still silence you but you can handle it this way.

I forgot to screenshot this next bit. As you go up the ramp there are frozen spirits in ice cubes, and mists. There’s basically 5 spirits to a “chamber”. Enter the chamber. AOE. When the mists disappear, go to the next chamber. AOE. The bits to worry about here are, these guys hit really hard. Don’t worry about mana, nuke ’em. Starfall kills them dead but Hurricane works well too. Also, they respawn when the mist forms, so don’t stay behind in a chamber – keep moving forward.

When you get past these, you’ll be up where Whatsername usually is, the splitting mage chick. Telestra. You know her. Anyway, instead, our buddy Tarecgosa is there, with a pair of arcane sentinel guys. Kill the first sentinel, avoiding the ice, and then the second.

Now Tara leads you around the corner and you find an ice wall. She’ll deal with it, and you get to deal with a great big named fel puppy demon this! Piece of cake. Dot him up, avoid his breath of fire attack, boom, he dies. I am serious about avoiding the fire breath thing though, it hurts if you don’t. When he’s casting, just get behind him, he doesn’t move once he starts casting.

Now – the funnest part!

Tarecgosa flies off and leaves you alone to make your way across the chasm. But you can’t use flight form inside! So just hop on that little platform. It’s a vehicle, but don’t worry, you don’t have to use vehicle abilities. It just takes you to the next guy to fight. There’ll be a big dragon on a big platform with four floating orbs. Nuke him, and click the orbs as your platform goes around. They give you a shield against his big damage attack although it doesn’t completely prevent damage. When you kill him, you have a new empty platform. Don’t jump yet – heal your wounds first. Then jump.

Two little adds will spawn, rising up on platforms. Hibernate one! Hibernate is awesome and this is the first time, like, ever, that it’s been so very very useful. Kill the other, then kill the hibernated one.

Then jump to one of the little platforms. Rinse and repeat your way across the chasm.

When the big scary dragon dude shows up, don’t panic, just jump to the next platform, kill the last dragon that you have to face, and jump to the ground. When you do, Tarecgosa will make her way to you and kill all the dragons on the ground. You don’t have to fight them!  Just try to avoid attention til she gets there.

That’s it, that’s the whole gauntlet. Now it’s time to face the boss… or it will be in Part 3!

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Timing Tranquility and Tree of Life

Tree of Life. Before Cataclysm, it was the Resto druid’s hallmark. Now it’s a super cooldown, the equivalent of the Hulk smashing out of his wimpy body to smash something. Even more so if you’re not running with the Glyph of No Thanks Pedotree. Lasts 25/31 seconds depending on talents.

Tranquility. With patch 4.1, Tranquility got a big boost for Resto druids. Instead of being a button you forget about, or hit accidentally and then curse, it should be a part of our toolbox that comes out every fight. Like Tree of Life, we want to time it to get the most use out of it. Lasts 8 seconds.

Right now these are our big cooldowns as Resto druids. There’s a lot of discussion over whether these are enough, since they aren’t particularly tank healing oriented or obvious life savers.  Personally I really like them. I enjoy feeling like a Resto druid isn’t just interchangeable with a Holy Priest or Resto Shaman.

To get the most out of our cooldowns, we need to time them right. With the reduced cooldown on Tranquility we can use either of them twice in a raid fight, at least once in any instance boss fight. The cooldowns are short enough we can use them on trash without worry that they’ll be down when we need them. So when is best to use them?

First, any time you want to hit Tranquility, toss out Wild Growth first. The HOT will trigger our mastery and get more healing out of the spell.

Hit Tranquility when three or more party or raid members are hurt, or time it to go off with a big boss ability that’s going to do lots of AOE damage.

For Tree of Life, throw it in one of two situations: First, to straight up boost your heals. Second, if you’re running low on mana, pop TOL and throw Lifebloom around. When you get Clearcasting procs, toss out an instant cast Regrowth. Don’t waste your time with cast-time spells in this mode, or Rejuv, but do throw out WG as it’s stronger than it used to be.

I’m not a theorycrafter, I don’t do heroic raid fights and we’ve yet to down end bosses so take my advice for what it is, but here’s when I find myself getting best use out of both cooldowns:

Magmaw –  Use Tranquility after a Molten Tantrum to get people up. Works beautifully if you’re using the all-stack-in-melee strat, still works if you’re kiting but you have to time it. Use TOL if you’re kiting worms or something else that requires movement. Remember if you’re in TOL and the head’s down and you don’t need to heal/regen mana, throw Wrath. It’s mana free in TOL and you might as well help out.

Omnotron – Use Tranquility when Magmatron does Flame Jets. Use TOL during Poison Protocol, especially if you’re being chased.

Maloriak – use Tranquility either during the red phase when the flame goes off, or during the green phase. We usually have more damage in red. Use TOL whenever you like but make sure it’s back up for P2. That phase can be movement intense and tanks can take spiky damage.

Atramedes – Time Tranquility for the ground phase at a point where you won’t have to avoid discs. Our raid stacks the ranged up in one spot so it’s great. TOL might be a good choice for air phase but honestly we don’t usually have much damage on that phase. Save it for spiky damage or if you get low on mana.

Chimaeron – coordinate with the other healers. You’re going to want to do both during Feud. I’d advise using Tranq the first time, TOL in combination with another healer’s cd the second time, and Tranq might be off cooldown the third Feud. Not really sure. If TOL’s back up in phase 2, pop it and use Wrath. You should be out of mana by then and you’re not healing anyway so go nuts with your tiny dps.

Throne of Four Winds – use TOL when you’re healing on the green/adds platform. Use Tranquility on the blue/ice platform during the aoe damage phase. If you’re on the wind platform, take a nap.

Halfus – pop TOL ten seconds after the pull. Keep people alive. When it fades, use Tranq after the Lifeblooms expire. That should get you past the damage intense part. You’ll have both back later so use them wisely.

V&T – use Tree on the second dragon. Tranquility can work for healing after a Blackout if another healer is dispelling and your timing is good.

Twilight Council – TOL in phase 1 at some point when you’re moving and there’s damage. Tranq in phase 2 after the raid gets hit by a big ability. Try to have both off cooldown for Phase 3. Blow Tranq first to get people nice and high, then use Tree to keep the fight going as long as possible.

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Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?

Wow Developers’ Twitter Chat, 4/16, about druids:

Restoration druids are actually getting a fair bit. For one, Tree of Life is getting a whole new model (think Ancients of War) and will also “morph” some of your spells to do crazy things while in the form, such as cause Regrowth to be instant, or Lifebloom to apply two applications at once. Tranquility will be raid-wide. We’re also touching nearly every Restoration druid spell to make sure each has a niche and feels good. In general, playing a Restoration druid should feel a lot different (better!) in Cataclysm than it does today.
(copied from here)

If the original class preview had said this, I bet there would have been a lot less QQ about tree form. This is telling me that even if we don’t look like trees most of the time, the essence of our tree-ness will still be important to resto druids. Don’t get me wrong I still want ToL a a permanent thing but this could actually be a cool cooldown. I was afraid of a healing boost or haste boost, but this is an actual mechanic change. Very eager to see it in action.

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