Furry Feathers and Flora: Dawn of a New Age

Cataclysm's been out for around a week now, and I'm sure most people are still getting themselves raid-ready, either by getting to 85, or getting the mix of 333-346 items. I'm personally in the latter area at the moment, and I'll share my experiences so far.

I'll start off with a quick paragraph or two about levelling to 85 in the first place. Even though I'm Resto to the bone, I have to say that I levelled as a Boomer, and did as many instances I could get away with as one... Which to say the least wasn't many in the end. The questing experience however has improved massively, and I do mean massively! A lot of it I had already played on alpha/beta, so I ended up just taking the quest and going to wherever the arrow pointed me to. But now that quest drops have been improved to near-100% drop rates, and other quests have exciting mechanics that don't always mean vehicles. Though I do like vehicles, I'm sure I'm part of a minority there.

My favourite zone has to be Uldum, Twilight Highlands was interesting, but you just can't beat the Indiana-Harrison Jones quests and easter eggs literally littering the whole zone, as well as all the cutscenes. You can tell Blizzard put a lot of effort into the zone. Hyjal and Vashj'ir are rather nice places to start in, however this is from the perspective of a 6k GS Druid. From what I hear about new people entering the zones, the first few quests can be a little challenging with Northrend quest rewards, but as soon as you start getting Cataclysm rewards, it starts paying off and you're in the same boat as many others.

As for levelling in the dungeons however... Don't. Each instance takes around 30-90mins, and they fill up maybe about 7 or 8 bars at most, if you're handing in quests after. Otherwise they're just areas where there's some loot that will be replaced by Uldum and Twilight Highlands quests in any case. Blackrock Caverns and Throne of the Tides normal modes are surprisingly rather easy to heal. It's only once you start hitting Vortex Pinnacle and above that you start to feel strain on healing.

At level 85 though, it all changes. I'd suggest completing as many quests as you can first to get the gear to comfortably pug 85 normals, then start getting 333-359 gear from a mix of normals and reputation vendors. Keep two stacks of water on you at all times, if there's the slightest bit of AoE that needs to be healed, you will most likely have downtime for mana. It doesn't help that we're now contending for the weakest class for AoE, from being one of the (if not the) most powerful AoE healing classes.

But here's a few tips that I've managed to pick up over the past week:

Don't Waste Mana

This may seem obvious, but as a Druid we're often hit hard by this bat. Firstly, don't overheal - even if you're gawking at me now about how we CAN overheal in this environment, it can happen. I haven't reactivated Recount since having the expansion, but we're not targetting for something like 60% overheal any more. I'd like to throw a number out there and say that 10% is good, but I really don't know. Aim for 0%! That'll do. Our healing over time effects are where this hits us hard. We can't control when other people heal our target, but try not to waste mana by sticking something like a Rejuvenation on someone with more than 80% health, other than the tank.

Secondly is HOT-"clipping". Now Blizzard largely removed a lot of clipping with DOTs and HOTs, in the sense that the first spell will complete its next damage or heal tick, before taking the new one into account. This means that you can cast Rejuvenation when you have 1 second before the end of the first one, the first Rejuv tick will go off, then 3 seconds later the new Rejuv will start its healing.

However, you can still clip your HOTs by casting Rejuv (or whatever HOT) before the second to last tick has gone off. You're essentially stealing yourself from a 3-6k heal. So always try to refresh HOTs between the penultimate and ultimate ticks, unless necessary in the case of Lifebloom, which I'll go through below.

Lifebloom, Lifebloom, Lifebloom... Lifebloom!

Seriously, I can't stress enough how much Lifebloom helps now. You want it to have 100% uptime in the best scenario, failing that at most a single GCD to get it back after a bloom. It's not that the bloom is necessarily a bad thing - its 18-35k heal is nothing to be sneezed at when the tank's taking a lot of damage, it's just that it helps a lot with mana regeneration while it is up that you'd have less mana than a Warrior if you didn't use it.

It procs Replenishment. It procs Revitalize. It makes Omen of Clarity proc more from Malfurion's Gift. The only thing it doesn't proc to do with mana return is Innervate (although it would be very nice if that did happen, Blizz, just sayin'). So in order to keep it up all the time, you have three options:

1. Lifebloom. The easiest, cheapest, and quickest way to maintaining LB would be to stick another LB on the target. This is the way to go if the LB target isn't currently taking much damage.
2. Nourish. This will (if specced into Empowered Touch) refresh Lifebloom stacks, and do a slow, cheap, medium-strength heal on the target.
3. Healing Touch. Also if specced into Empowered Touch, this will cast a slow, expensive, powerful heal on the target, and refresh LB. This is also the go-to spell if you manage to synergise Omen of Clarity with LB nearly coming off, for the chance of Living Seed.

As you can see from above, Empowered Touch is fairly necessary in your build, which we'll get onto later. You can always let the LB bloom if you don't have the time or mana for a powerful heal, as a 3 stack bloom heals around the same as Healing Touch will, but do be wary of the loss of healing throughput having to restack LB back up again. You also don't have to worry about heal clipping either, Blizzard put in measures to avoid that kind of thing.

Casting with a Clear Mind

I touched on it briefly in the previous tip, but we now actually have to think about our Omen of Clarity/Clearcasting procs. As said, it procs from Lifebloom the most out of any other spells - although it still has the chance to proc from anything, Malfurion's Gift gives it more of an opportunity to proc.

Clearcasting can be shown using the Blizzard Power Auras with this symbol around your character:

It also has a fairly distinctive sound that goes with it, but with combat sounds already drowning things out alongside TS, you might miss the note from time to time. It might be worth setting up a Power Aura for it as well from the player-created addon, with a louder or more distinct sound.

As for the actual casting of spells while under the Clearcasting effect, there's a few conditionals. But it all boils down to using your most expensive single target heals (WG, LB, Nourish and Tranquility are unaffected by Clearcasting) - so we'll be using either Regrowth or Healing Touch. Basically it boils down to how quickly you need to heal a target.

On a tank, you'll pretty much always be using Healing Touch. It refreshes Lifebloom, gives a nice chunk of free health and if it crits, you're looking at a 10k free heal when the tank next gets hit.

If the tank looks safe for a few seconds, then focus on a non-tank: if their health is low and they're in danger of dying, use Regrowth followed by a Master-boosted HT or Nourish. If their health is low and they're not in danger of dying, HT. If their health is high, use a quick Regrowth and go back to what you were doing before.

You have around 8 seconds to use the proc, so don't hold it off for too long, and make sure that the slower cast HT has time to hit before it falls off (so you're looking at just over 6 seconds before the crunch time). If Clearcasting drops, you're out around 5-6k mana basically. Live (or die) and learn.

Innervate

Do it early. It restores 20% of your mana pool, and chances are that you'll be continuing to cast while it's up. I'd suggest Power Auras again to tell you when you're at 80% mana to give you an indication that you might start thinking of using it. Then another Power Aura to tell you when Innervate's back up. Even if the boss or mobs are beginning to get low on health and it pops up, use it. I've wiped more than once now where I thought I'd be able to manage with low mana and just drink my way after the fight back to full blue. If anything, it'll lower downtime after fights too.

AoE Healing

As I said earlier, we've been gutted from our top spot of AoE healing down to the bottom of the pile. Many healers are also facing this kind of butchery, but from what I've seen and experienced, Druids have been hit the hardest - possibly because of getting out of old habits is harder when you've been playing them a while.

Efflorescence used to be such a nice free AoE heal, but as we're entering 5mans, heroics and facing content that's challenging for us, there are better talents out there to take (Furor and Moonglow for example). The aim of the game is longevity, not throughput when you're not outgearing content. Cataclysm is about predictable and consistent damage - you no longer need to overheal your way through content in case of spike damage. I've dropped Efflorescence for now, as if people do actually stay in it for it's full duration (which they don't) you'll get a massive... 3-5k heal from it.

Wild Growth on the other hand... Also bad. It costs around 5-6k mana off the top of my head, and heals the group for around 10-20% of their total health pools. Rejuvenation is expensive to cast on EVERYONE, unlike before too. I mainly only use Wild Growth to give Tranquility a boost from Symbiosis. Otherwise our AoE healing consists of waiting on Clearcasting procs, or waiting for a gap to heal people.

Treat every fight like Anub'arak phase 3 - keeping people at around 40-60% health apart from the tanks.

Bandages!

It may seem silly to use bandages as a healer - that's what we're there for, to replace the need for bandages! That certainly was the case for TBC and Wrath in any case. But hey, in this expansion we're actually running out of mana and having to conserve it. So level up your First Aid, carry around 2-4 stacks of bandages around, and keybind them just as you would a normal heal. Although don't forget that bandages only heal people who aren't taking damage, so it's best off to hope for OoC procs while bandaging DPS. As with Innervate - do it early so it could be up later in the fight when you really need them again!

In conclusion... The spec itself!

While still entering new content (going into 85 normals for the first time, or heroics, or raids) this is the spec that I'll be using:

8/2/31

Going into the Balance tree primarily for Moonglow, making all of our spells 9% cheaper to cast is a HUGE saving in mana, while the extra haste after casting Regrowth in Nature's Grace and the extra crit is always nice to have along the way. Because of this, we can only really afford two points into Furor to give us 10% extra mana. I might have a play around to see if have 6% cheaper spells and 15% extra mana, but as Druid guides seem to say at the moment, 2/3 Furor is the way to go.

As for the Resto tree, you can see that I've opted out for Efflorescence completely. To me, it just seems too expensive to put 3 points into it where they could be spent better elsewhere. Everything else in the tree is pretty much a given, Nature's Bounty is a filler talent that can be put anywhere really. Nature's Ward is in there as I'm the most likely target to get hit after the tank, so that free Rejuv helps out a lot, saving around 4-5k mana and a GCD, and will stay on your for as long as you get hit under 50%.

With glyphs, we haven't really got much options for a fair few of them, in similarity with many other classes.

• Lifebloom, Regrowth, Rejuvenation and Swiftmend are our options for Prime, and I decided on dropping Regrowth as it's far too situational, and if people are dropping that low, I'll be casting HT on them anyway.
• For the Majors, we have a slightly less limited choice than with Primes, with all of Barkskin, Healing Touch, Innervate, Rebirth, Thorns and Wild Growth. I've opted for Innervate for raiding purposes mainly, I'll be sending another healing around 16k mana with the pool that I have at the moment, while getting 8k as well for myself - which is around 24k mana's worth of healing! Healing Touch is also one that I've picked, as we're starved for time as well as mana now, so the sooner we get NS back off cooldown, the better, and we're using HT a lot more now compared to before, so it all balances out. The third slot goes to Rebirth for me. If someone dies I don't want to spend time both BRing them as well as healing them back up again - again it's too much time and mana that could be spent elsewhere. Wild Growth is also a powerful contender, especially in a raid, however at the moment I feel I can do without.
• Finally, the Minors. The only one I find "mandatory" is Unburdened Rebirth, as it saves a bit of cash and bagspace. The rest are entirely your call, the only of no use are Challenging Roar and Typhoon. I've gone for MotW for cheaper costs when people die and are BR'd, and Treant so people don't lose focus when they see me pop grandpa-broccoli form and start laughing and wiping... It has happened.

Unique Buffs mkII

Outdated picture is outdated.

So Blizzard have made buffs even more 10man friendly with this latest expansion. This is good for many, many reasons! Firstly, it means that Blizzard can now actually balance raids assuming people have most, if not all buffs available to them even in a 10man environment. So this could mean more challenging raid fights in the smaller bracket!

... Well, Blizzard have said that they'd be buffing the current tested bosses up a fair bit in any case in terms of numbers. The tests have mainly been to do with testing the mechanics of the fight. The part that makes them hard gets put in later.

So in the 4.0 patch, we've noticed that a lot of spells have appeared to have merged together (or I hope you've noticed). It also made my last post about unique buffs rather redundant, considering the butchery that has happened to Paladin Blessings. Other than that, this will prove to be a nice post about what the heck's just happened and why that n00b Druid won't buff MotW.

First up, the GENERAL STATS buff:

Mark of the Wild (Druid)

Blessing of Kings (Paladin)

Embrace of the Shale Spider (Hunter - Shale Spider)

+ AGI/STR:

Battle Shout (Warrior)

Horn of Winter (Death Knight)

Strength of Earth (Shaman)

Roar of Courage (Hunter - Cat; Spirit Beast)

+STAMINA:

Power Word: Fortitude (Priest)

Commanding Shout (Warrior)

Blood Pact (Warlock)

Qiraji Fortitude (Hunter - Silithid)

+MANA:

Arcane Brilliance (Mage)

Fel Intelligence (Warlock - Felhunter)

+ALL DAMAGE:

Ferocious Inspiration (BM Hunter)

Arcane Tactics (Arcane Mage)

Paladin Auras (Retribution Paladin)

+CRIT:

Elemental Oath (Elemental Shaman)

Honor Among Thieves (Subtlety Rogue)

Leader of the Pack (Feral Druid)

Rampage (Fury Warrior)

Furious Howl (Hunter - Wolf)

Terrifying Roar (Hunter - Devilsaur)

+HASTE:

Bloodlust/Heroism (Shaman)

Time Warp (Mage)

Ancient Hysteria (Hunter - Corehound)

+ATTACK POWER:

Abomination's Might (Blood Death Knight)

Blessing of Might (Paladin)

Trueshot Aura (Marksmanship Hunter)

Shamanistic Rage (Enhancement Shaman)

+PHYSICAL HASTE:

Hunting Party (Survival Hunter)

Improved Icy Talons (Frost Death Knight)

Windfury Totem (Shaman)

+6% SPELLPOWER:

Arcane Brilliance (Mage)

Flametongue Totem (Shaman)

+10% SPELLPOWER:

Demonic Pact (Demonology Warlock)

Totemic Wrath (Elemental Shaman)

+SPELL HASTE:

Moonkin Aura (Balance Druid)

Mind Quickening (Shadow Priest)

Wrath of Air Totem (Shaman)

-SPELL PUSHBACK:

Concentration Aura (Paladin)

Totem of Tranquil Mind (Shaman)

+MANA REGEN:

Blessing of Might (Paladin)

Fel Intelligence (Warlock - Felhunter)

Mana Spring Totem (Shaman)

REPLENISHMENT:

Vampiric Touch (Shadow Priest)

Enduring Winter (Frost Mage)

Communion (Retribution Paladin)

Revitalize (Restoration Druid)

Soul Leech (Destruction Warlock)

+ARMOR:

Devotion Aura (Paladin)

Stoneskin Totem (Shaman)

DAMAGE REDUCTION:

Ancestral Fortitude (Restoration Shaman)

Inspiration (Holy Priest)

So as you can see from that loooong list, the basic gist of it is that Blizzard are certainly using the idea of bringing the player, not the class. Shamans won't be solely needed for their Hero or BL, as that buff can be brought by BM Hunters or Mages at 85 raiding, with Replenishment coming to Resto Druids, your DPS don't have to go to a sub-spec in order to bring the buff, and so on and so forth. Basically, none of the buffs listed above are unique to any class any more, and while you may not be able to fill in every single gap, it certainly does bring a lot more than we were able to before and you can raid more as what YOU want as opposed to what the raid leader wants.

PUGs in a New Age

This is the eve of Wrath, before Deathwing reaches the shores of Azeroth and decimates the world (of Warcraft) - yet leaving Northrend untouched... Would have thought some polar icecaps would be melting, but it seems the mages in Dalaran want to keep their new continent intact for a while and are straining to keep it unmelted. This is the twilight before the Twilight, the lowest point of the game before it starts bursting at the seams! This is Cataclysm!

So as some people know, I've been in the alpha and beta of Cataclysm for quite some time now. At the start of pugging instances, everything was fine and dandy, we only had the one functioning instance, but people were doing as they were before - just getting on with it. Then the big ol' Cataclysm downloader-streamer-red/orange/green bar of happiness and sorrow came along and I focused more on my Shaman and raiding ICC in general, because I didn't want to go and download all of the beta AGAIN.

Cut to a few months later, and I accidentally managed to leave the downloader on all night, and lo and behold, I could play on the beta again the next day! So I hopped onto the servers and realised that half of my quests had been wiped. Couldn't be bothered to trawl through Hyjal and Vashj'ir again when the beta bloat test was going on (the test where everyone gets beta invites, including people without WoW accounts, to see if the respawn rates and so on will work for launch), so I patiently waited until I could copy a premade level 85. That happened, and my mage was born a few days later! I logged in on him and realised I'd forgotten about discovering instance entrances... Sigh. Ah well, I could still sign up for heroic SFK and heroic Deadmines, which I did. I still haven't seen SFK, apparently it's way out of tune. Anyway, long enough introduction, to sum up the rest of it the experience wasn't great, people were still clinging to their Wrath ways and wiping because of it.

First thing's first, you're going to get a lot of ass-hats in the dungeon finder for the first few months, and the only way to escape them is by running with people you know (*cough* guild achievements/experience/rep *cough*). In the odd case that you do find yourself in the feared environment of a PUG, here's some handy tips:

CC

Crowd Control is back in action! This time round it's easier than it was in Vanilla or Burning Crusade, simply because you won't have a few niche classes that can only do certain things. Warlocks' Fear can now be major glyphed so that the target doesn't actually run around, they just stand cowering on the spot, with Elementals being banishable (and there's a lot in Cata). Shamans can viably Hex. Hunters can shoot their traps off into the distance instead of the old setting down a trap and Distracting Shot one away. Druids can Root indoors, and Cyclone something else for a short period. You also have your standard Saps, Sheeps and Shackles too.

Tanking

Know the difference between fights that you're AoE tanking, and which ones you're single-targeting to avoid breaking CC or whatnot. One of the main gripes that I saw common amongst all tanks that I was with, was that Paladins still used Consecration, Death Knights used Death and Decay, Warriors Thunder Clapping, etc... ON TOP of where the group initially stood. What, did you expect the Rogue to move the target 20 yards away and then sap him?

Practise the art of pulling again, if you're doing the pulling with CC coming after, give enough time for the 1.7sec cast of CC before you select a spot for tanking the rest of the mobs.

And keep an eye on the healer's mana before you pull.

Healing

The healing game has changed, though for the better or for worse is up for discussion. At level 80 with the current trees, all the healers are pretty cushty in terms of mana regen and healing output (I'll say it again for those that I haven't told yet, my Druid managed 12k HPS on Blood Queen 10-heroic without much concern for mana, this being in a mixture of 251 and 264 gear /flex). However, as you progress through the level up to 85, you might find that the Cataclysm 5mans, heroics especially, might put a bit more of a dent in your mana pool, and might cause you to actually break into a sweat at some points! The healing is much more focused and you'll generally get "predictable" strikes on your tank, rather than spiky damage we're used to.

And if the DPS pulls aggro... You won't have the time or the mana to save them 80% of the time (statistics pulled from my arse), so just plough through healing the tank where needed, maybe put one GCD on the DPS just in case the tank pulls aggro back again or the mob gets CCed, but generally your only focus will be the tank. Otherwise you'll be seeing this lady below a lot more than you want to.

And Azuregos wouldn't like that.

But even now, you can't use the saying of "If the tank dies, it's the healer's fault; if the healer dies it's the tank's fault; and if the DPS dies it's their own goddamn fault!" as we come out of the Wrath era. At 85 in heroics I'm still seeing tanks (quite possibly premade and jaded by Wrath) run in without concern for what the mobs do and start AoEing for 3 seconds before they die.

1. Don't blame the healers for lack of healing when you don't use CC or break it early.
2. Don't blame the tanks for the lack of threat if the DPS goes all out from the start, or attack the wrong mobs.
3. Do blame the DPS if they can't look after themselves. Blizzard have given survival opportunities for nearly every spec now - admittedly some are more survivable than others, but use them where you can!

Group synergy is more important now than ever - treat a 5man like you would a raid, at least for the first few months for sure.

"Unique" Buffs

It's just going to be a short blog post here (for once I'm actually doing it right!) about the small range of buffs that classes can do that are unique to the target, or in effect you can't cast them on more than one person, or you can't stack buffs of the same style onto the same person. Confusing intro, hopefully it'll be explained down below.

It's going to be outdated soon enough in the 4.0 patch, but I'll first talk about Paladin Blessings, These come in 3-4 flavours, depending on your spec, and have certain priority over what to buff who. I HIGHLY recommend the addon PallyPower, just to make things easier for buff assignments in a raid. I'll put in a list below of what each role will want over other blessings:

Abbreviations

BoK - Blessing of Kings

BoM - Blessing of Might

BoW - Blessing of Wisdom

BoS - Blessing of Sanctuary (Protection only)

Pre-4.0

Tanks: BoS, BoK, BoM, BoW*

Physical± DPS: BoM, BoK, BoS, BoW*

Casters and Healers: BoK, BoW, BoS

Note: If you have BoM or BoW improved, cast it. If not, you might be better off using another buff and getting a Warrior to Battle Shout, or a Shaman to use Mana Spring Totem. And don't forget about Drums f the Forgotten Kings too!

* BoW only on the classes that use mana of course, like Paladins etc

± Physical DPS includes Hunters.

After patch 4.0, the priority system gets much simpler. BoS has
gone, and has turned into the talent Sanctuary which is a passive effect. BoW has merged its effects into BoM, so effectively Paladins now have 2 buffs to choose from, and with mana management being more challenging, the Blessing priorities appear to be the following at the moment:

Post-4.0

Tanks: BoK, BoM

Everyone else: BoM, BoK

Now onto Paladin Auras! This is pretty simple for Paladins, generally in ICC you want Devotion Aura up as main priority, as most fights use physical damage that isn't spike damage. Next up is whatever you have the main improvement in, so Holy will generally go for Concentration, while Retribution will go for... Retribution. Different fights have different priorities though, and it's important to use your head as to what's best. On Sindragosa, it might be better to swap out Devo for Frost Resist, for example. And again, to help with organising auras, download PallyPower!

Next stop is for Warriors. They have two things to make a decision on; firstly is their Shout buffs. They have a choice of either Battle Shout, increasing raid's physical DPS, or Commanding Shout, increasing raid's health. Both of these are shared with other class buffs, so just use the best with whichever setup you have. Retribution Paladins will be able to overwrite your Battle Shout, and your Commanding Shout will overwrite a Warlock Imp's Blood Pact. But you may as well have either BoM and CS, or BP and BS, so adjust accordingly.

The second thing for Warriors to think about - well, of the Protection variety - is Vigilance. Who to put it on? There is a bit of controversy as to who to put this on, most Warriors you will find will just look at damage meters and stick it on the first person on there. Some argue that with the fact that once you have initial aggro, a boss pretty much sticks to you, so putting it on a Hunter or Rogue (that usually tops meters) would be a waste as they'll be redirecting threat to you anyway, and put it on a raging Fury Warrior.

Some switch it around all the time, and change to people like Boomkins, Mages and Warlocks for AoE, as no doubt they'll pick something up, then when it gets back to single target, go for high DPS. Personally, I like to see it on the other tank, especially if the Warrior is the OT. 3% damage mitigation isn't something that's going to save a DPS necessarily, and people shouldn't really be doing more TPS (threat per second) than the tanks.

Next one's a fairly easy one. Mages' Focus Magic (and I guess in turn Tricks of the Trade for Rogues). In raids this is usually rotated through the multiple Mages, or Rogues for theirs, in the raid. When there is only a single Mage, Focus Magic is best used on a class that crits a lot (No shit, huh?), so aim for Boomkins, SPs, Destrolocks, Ele Shamans (even Enhancement will do). As for Rogues, just use Tricks on any high DPSer that aren't in any danger of pulling aggro. Use it on tanks if they're slacking behind though.

Warlocks! Your Soul Stone is a powerful tool that, like a Druid's Rebirth covered by my last article, gives someone a second chance if they die in a fight. How it differs from a Druid's Rebirth is that instead of a reactive second chance, it's more proactive - you only get to cast it once per Warlock, and you can't cast it on someone who's already faceplanting the ground. This one's hard to have a definitive list of who should be top priority, as different encounters have different mechanics. Generally, I'd say a Druid (a DPS before a healing or tanking one) should get first priority, so they have the opportunity to jump back up and BR someone else and then get back into their role. Again with BR targets, please say when you're jumping back up. Makes life easier for healers to prep for it.

Ok... Well that post went on longer than I thought it would. Anyway, if there's anything I've missed, post it in the comments below!

Furry Feathers and Flora: Ins and Outs of Rebirth

As a frequenter of WoW.com, there are sometimes a few articles that make me think (although most of these days with beta and that, most of the articles are focused on that). Raid Rx and Matt Low recently talked about 5 reasons why you don't get healed, and went on a little about how Rebirth can be used more than just simply getting someone alive again. For this blog, I'll be referring to Rebirth as its common abbreviation BR (battle res).

Rebirth is a powerful tool that can give attempts on bosses a second chance in beating the encounter. It allows a near-instant (or in some cases, instant) way of bringing someone back to life. When a Druid casts it, the player will be brought to the location where they casted it, not their current location when the player accepts the res. This means that you have to keep an eye on when you cast it, and where. For example, you don't want to use BR when an ooze is exploding on Rotface, or BRing someone on the edge of the platform on LK before it crumbles away, etc. Essentially, you definitely need to move away from the fire before you even decide to BR someone.

The second thing that's noteworthy about the BR is that when the person comes back up, they'll be at low health and mana (if they use that resource). If they don't accept the res straight away, they'll need to announce when they'll accept it, so healers can be on the ball to heal them back up so the player doesn't bite the dust again. Also, it is the Druid that BR'd's responsibility to either Innervate, or call out for someone to Innervate the low-mana player.

So you've got multiple Druids who can BR, who should do it first, and not waste an important cooldown such as BR? While it's not set in stone, depending on encounter or whatever (Halion phase 3 for example, where Druids are preferred to be in the Twilight phase due to their AoE healing superiority), however you'll generally find the priority list of BRs will come from:

1. Balance Druids (as ranged, they'll be less likely to be in fire, and can also reach anyone with relative ease)
2. Kitty Druids (also DPS, so they can take a few steps back, cast the BR and get straight back into combat after, missing a bit of DPS is better than missing a heal)
3. Trees (they'll be the first to know when someone bites the dust, but still they should be behind the DPS, as they'll probably be busy keeping tanks alive, and by ressing someone it could cause someone else to not receive their heals and then die)
4. Bears (these will barely ever have to BR, being last in priority, but it doesn't mean that they can't res. Either the off-tank can momentarily take the Druid's target, or the Druid can pop all their survival cooldowns, let healers know and quickly shift out and BR and go back into bear form after).

It also helps, I find, if you macro your Rebirth to also spam raid chat with a message to tell people that you are BRing at that particular moment. It allows other Druids to cancel their BR so that multiple BRs aren't wasted in waiting for a raider to jump up. If you begin to cast it and decide against it, for reasons of moving out of the fire or that someone's taken spike damage, again let the raid know in some fashion, so that other Druids can step up to the plate.

Another call of judgement for both Druids and raid leaders alike are who to BR, and when to do it. Usually you'll need to BR someone as soon as possible, although some encounters or at some points in an encounter, you'll need to wait a few seconds. These can include high incoming DPS phases, where it's almost likely the ressed will get killed straight away again, on Festergut when the target won't get any Inoculation before the abomination farts, or on Lich King at 11%. If the faeces hits the rotating device before there's a chance to react, then it might be better off to save the BR for the next attempt anyway.

As for the person receiving a BR, please please please can you let the raid know, or do a countdown (allowing time for lag on Vent/TS/Skype) on when you'll pop back up. Also, keep an eye out on where you'll be popping up at too - jumping up in a Marrowgar Coldflame quickly brings many raid leaders' and druids' palms to their faces as you overdramatise your demise and go back to watching the ants on the floor. Seriously, for me the game turns into slow motion. For a final point, if you do die and think it's time for a little break of alt-tabbing or going AFK, let the raid know so that a BR isn't wasted.

Call to Arms: Warsong Gulch!

I started writing this as a thread in the guild forums (well, I was going to do it for all battlegrounds), but starting off with my personal favourite battleground, I realised that this was a slightly larger task than I originally thought it would be. So I decided that I'd poke the blog to see if it was dead, and lo and behold, it's alive! Anyway, what WAS going to be in the thread is below:


I figured I'd write down some of the "tactics" that I had picked up from spamming battlegrounds recently. I know what you're thinking... I shouldn't be doing any kind of tactics unless I'm regurgitating them from bosskillers or wowhead, and that should only be in a PvE environment. Either that, or the fact that you can't actually put straight tactics in a PvP environment.


The lure to PvP is that every fight is different, for the most part. You aren't up again scripted bosses that are programmed to giggle when you tickle their balls. When you try to tickle an orc's balls, you have no idea as to whether or not he'll giggle, scream like a little girl, try to cleave you in two, just stand there being AFK or have 5 or 6 buddies come right up behind you out of nowhere and blast you to kingdom come.



PvP is exciting! PvP is unpredictable! PvP therefore should have no tactics! I should not be writing this thread! Everything should make a mockery of me for even thinking it! I should be locked in a loony bin and offered random words of jibberish in return for food! Or is it the other way round? Doesn't matter. Let the insanity of the tactics for Warsong Gulch commence!

First, the objectives and how to win in the BG. All you need to do is run the length of the map 6 times, of which 3 of those times you need to be holding a flag. You also have the help of 9 other people to help you. Sounds easy enough, so let's make it a little more challenging. You're also up against 10 opponents, who will try to make those 6 lengths of the map take as long as possible. And then to add a bit more salt, you can only score your flag when your opponents don't have your flag in their possession.

The game does now last a maximum of 25mins however, and generally whoever has more flags wins. In the case of a tie, whoever scored the last flag wins. In 0-0, it's a tie. But whoever scores 3 flags first can make this 25 minutes a lot shorter, so in this society of WoW, we try to make it as fast as possible so we can get on with our next BG.

First up, some abbreviations/key words in WSG:

WSG: Warsong Gulch, the BG you're in.

FC: Flag Carrier, the person carrying the enemy flag.

EFC: Enemy Flag Carrier, the person carrying your flag. Kill them. Return flag. Happy days. *Note - anything with an e- prefix generally means the enemy version of whatever, like etun, egy, efc, etc.*

Tun: The tunnel that leads straight from the midfield into the heart of your base/to the roof.

GY: The place you spawn at when you die. Looking at the base, it is situated to the left of the tunnel entrance.

Ramp: The sloped area of land, providing access to the GY, first floor and second floor of the base. It is situated to the right of the tunnel entrance.

FR: Flagroom. First floor (ground floor to non-US) of the base.

Balcony: Second floor of the base (first floor to non-US).

Roof: Top floor of the base.

WTB BUFFS

It's the start of the match, you've got over a minute to prepare for the next 25. You can't move out into the field until the gates lift after preparation. Everything you cast is free of charge (minus the reagent cost, if any), so what do you do? Spam your AoEs.

Before that though, there are a few things that should be kept in mind:

• If you can buff players, you should be buffing everyone you can while the gates are still closed.
• If you are a mage or warlock, create food tables and health stones for other players.
• If you are the leader, attempt to come to some form of agreement as to the tactics / strategies to be used.
• Pick a flag runner (or two) so that everyone knows who it is. This should either be a druid or rogue for speed, or a solid tank class (druid, paladin, warrior, death knight) for survivability.

You'd be amazed at how just spending that quick minute will do to the rest of the match. The first punch will make a big hole if you're buffed up, and instead of a mad scramble to the flag, with healers not knowing who to prioritise healing on, it can turn into chaos.

CONTROL THE MIDDLE

You hear it all the time, and when it gets attempted, someone says you're doin' it wrong. So what does control the middle actually mean in WSG? From my experiences, the best form of control is to:

• Stop/stagger the attacking force.
• Kill the EFC.
• Keep the enemy away from the FC
• Trap the enemy into a confined area with minimal use of your own forces.

Essentially, controlling the middle means to let your own FC have a clean uninterrupted run from their base to yours. It can be very difficult to implement, but once you keep all 10 of them trapped at their graveyard, it's a sure-fire win. The only trouble in the maintenance would be stealthing classes, ones that manage to sneak away anyway, or when the full force of 10 opponents against your 7-9 becomes quite apparent.

One thing's for sure though. For the love of god, please do NOT try and be the solo-hero, 9 times out of 10 you will fail if you leap into a group of opponents on your own. If you're smart, you might be able to pull off snare tactics or hide with their flag when you're the only one in their half of the field, but don't try anything until you know you can get backup soon. It's easier to punch with your fist than with one finger at a time, after all.

ASSIST THE FLAG CARRIER

Rolling in from the previous point if controlling the middle, if you can't entrap your enemy into a corner of the map, the easiest tactic to implement would be to assist the FC. All classes can do it in their own way, some better than others, but you have no excuse to say you can't help at all. I know the classes can do much more than the following, but here's one way from each class/spec they can assist:

Death Knight: Death Gripping melee away, or interrupting casts.

Druid (Balance): Cyclone anyone with half a clue that's beating on your FC, otherwise a healer.

Druid (Feral): Keeping on a healer means you can slow them down with Infected Wounds, and you can interrupt heals too.

Druid (Restoration): Err, heal.

Hunter: Snare traps, very nice burst.

Mage: Frostbolt has a snare linked with it, for non-frosties... Frost Nova!

Paladin (Holy): You're built to heal, might as well have fun with it.

Paladin (Protection): Hand of Sacrifice/Freedom/Protection(not on the flag carrier though!).

Paladin (Retribution): As above.

Priest (Healing): You specced for healing, you must have wanted to heal, right?

Priest (Shadow): AoE fear.

Rogue: Crippling Poison + Fan of Knives.

Shaman (Elemental): Earthbind toteeeeeeem! With extra rooting!

Shaman (Enhancement): Frost shooooooooock! With extra rooting!

Shaman (Restoration): As with the other healing classes, you can chuck heals out too.

Warlock: Shadowfury. Nice and annoying stun that grates into my bones every time.

Warrior (DPS): Hamstring.

Warrior (Protection): You have a whole load of stuns available to you, like the other tanks you're not completely helpless if you're not carrying the flag yourself.

One thing they can all do in addition to the above: Just plain DPS the people hitting on your FC, or DPS the people healing the people who are hitting your FC.

THE ATTACK!

So what about the attack itself? You can do this in a number of ways, depending on how the opposing force attack and defend. Usually, you'll find people on a full offensive, or Zerg, sending out all 10 people to the other side of the map with little to no confrontation, taking the flag, and running back, hoping to intercept on the way back. This usually works best when you outgear/skill the opposing force. If you aren't and they outgear/skill you, you'll usually find you get a dead FC and the EFC happily runs to their base. If you're of equal gear/skill, you might find one side gets lucky, or both FCs end up dead and the process starts again.

A second tactic, the Sandwich, is similar to the full offensive, but instead of all 10 going out, you send around 7 out. This attack group consists of FC(s), healers and CC/DPS. The defensive group of around 3 takes on the task of either killing the EFC outright, or just snaring and preventing the opposition from getting back to their base swiftly, in hopes that the offensive team can sandwich them. The defending team should be able to work well together, and be comprised of people that either do well at burst damage, or do well at CCing. If the enemies get away from the defending team, they need to call out which direction the EFC is heading, and how many they have assisting them, so the attacking force can decide whether or not to sandwich.

The third main tactic is known as the Turtle, and pretty much lasts the whole game. This tactic is generally used when you know your opposing team outgears/skills you. 8 people are defending inside the FR, with 2 people in offense or midfield. There's not much to say here, 8 people should be able to keep their inside the FR, even if it is picked up. If not, the two people on the outside can intercept and bring it back. The two people down in the field can also be used to help tell the FR defenders from what direction to expect attack. This tactic is used to either force a draw, or to win by capturing the last flag. This can be a useful offensive tactic to use if you have a Druid healer and a tank as they're a very mobile team with high survivability.

In contrast to the last tactic, we also have the Turtle Breaker in which you're up against a team who've decided you're better than them. This means a highly defended FR and little chance of getting the flag out of it. But there is still chance! They've already decided you're better than them, why not test it out to see if it's because of sheer intelligence. If you're a Priest/Warrior, you can run/jump/charge in and immediately scatter everything with AoE fears. Grab the flag and run for the exit of least resistance, together. If you're a mage, Invisibility run in, grab the flag, blink out then freeze anything that tries to catch up with you.

If you're anything else you have two options: One is a distraction, the other is a relay race. The Distraction is to send one person or small group of people in to grab the flag, with the second team hiding out of sight. The first team grabs the flag and begins for the graveyard exit. If the first team manages to jump off the ledge, you've been successful (if you can make it back to base then it's very successful, but it's not the tactic we're discussing here). All the defenders should follow the FC out of the room, and if/when the FC dies, the second team moves into the enemy FR. As soon as the flag is returned the second team takes it and runs for the ramp exit - if the first FC didn't make it down the ledge, he needs to let the second team know so that they can switch to a tunnel exit.

The Relay Race is similar to the distraction, however everyone goes in at once. One person drops the flag prematurely (before death) and before the opposition realise, someone else picks it back up again. The bonus to this is that usually the opposition will be too focused on killing the FC down and THEN be ready to take that flag. If the flag is dropped early, then it gives the next person a bit of time before the opposition start beating on them. This is obviously a risky strategy when the opponents are on the ball and manage to CC/fear everyone before the next FC takes the flag, or simply beats anyone else to it, and this tactic is really only to be used when everyone has some form of voice communication, so healers can switch targets, flag drops and pickups can be timed just right, etc.

THE DEFENCE

There are a few tips and tricks that can be used when you have the flag in your possession:

- Call incoming enemies (incs) as soon as you see them.
Quantity and heading are essential. Calling should be done by anyone who sees enemies make a move for the FR. Valid calls are for example: "inc 2 tun", "4 inc ramp", "mass inc tun!!!11" and so on.

- When an inc is called, see if you are in a position to help.
You can do this by taking a look in the battle map and checking if there are enough defenders. If you are far in midfield or in the enemy's fort, perhaps you should not bother rushing in though. If you die in midfield when an inc is called, do not resurrect and run off back into the midfield even if you are attacking. First help defence and then go back to the attack.

- When your flag is taken, call the direction in which the EFC runs *immediately*.
If you are the last to die defending, don't release your spirit until you see where the EFC is going and call it. If you do release your spirit, or it is released for you, when you resurrect immediately take a peek from the GY towards the FR. If you don't see any flag trail call tun, otherwise ramp/GY and act on it.

- If both flags are taken, get at least a healer or a crowd-controller (CC) to stay with you.
It increases your chance of survival by a long way.

- Hide in a place where you are hard to find, or a place easily accessible from your GY.
Roof, the room in your FR, a small area behind your GY, far side of the GY, behind the hut on the way to your roof, in small spaces such as the ones in your ledge entrance etc. are all great places to hide, try hiding the flag inside walls too so that enemies can't see the big red/blue banner that implies "I want to be killed"

- If the enemy has found you, but you killed them consider changing location
So that they have to first find you again.

- If the match is in a stalemate with both flags taken, watch the battle map.
Eventually it will show the location of the efc. It works the other way too, so when it happens get some added security since the enemy could be coming in force.

- When the efc is about to die, spam-click the flag
So that the enemy won't have an opportunity to pick it up again.

- If your flag has been taken and you were the last defender in the FR,
Go back so that if capped, you are there already to prevent them retaking the flag immediately.

- The roof is a good place to hide if you have no support
because it means you can see the FR, and you have easy routers to the ledge, GY, ramp and FR.