Wrath of the Lich King made a number of fundamental changes to the game, many of which went through so many iterations that it can be difficult to get the facts. You can find a summary of these changes as related to the Restoration Druid in this extensive FAQ!
Leotheras the Blind: Battling Your Inner Demon
Published on January 5, 2008 by Phaelia 
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Reader Seperioth of the Venture Co (US) writes in with this question regarding the Leotheras the Blind fight in Serpentshrine Caverns:
My guild is attempting Leotheras the Blind in SSC. When Leo spawns your mirror demon on you, I run into trouble.
I got mine once, and [another Resto Druid] got his once. I got mine down 25% before the raid wiped... and he almost got his killed before the demon killed him.
My question is... as a Resto Druid is there anything I can do to work through this? My DPS as Resto is almost non-existent. I also get squished by my demon's hard hits.
I stack Stamina gems wherever I can and Stamina patches, but I still get smacked down.
So I was wondering if you or anyone you knew had an idea on how Restos should go at this fight.
Since my guild has currently stalled out after taking down Lurker, I haven't seen this fight personally. But I'm not opposed to doing some research. WoWWiki.com describes this ability as follows:
Inner Demon
- Around ~25s into the Demon Form phase, Leotheras will summon an Inner Demon from up to five raid members.
- Inner Demons spawn with ~11,000 health.
- Each Inner Demon can be attacked only by the person it spawned from. You have 30 seconds to kill your own Inner Demon. If Leotheras returns to humanoid form while your Inner Demon is still alive, you will become Mind Controlled for 10 minutes (non-removable except through death).
- Inner Demons hit for very little and can easily be healed through, dealing ~1000 damage melee and casting a 3.5k damage Shadow Bolt (reflectable!).
- Inner Demons take increased damage from Arcane, Nature, and Holy spells.
- Inner Demons will not be summoned on the person with aggro.
- Hunters, Warlocks, Shamans, Mages and even Priests should make sure their pet doesn't get the killing blow; the Mind Control is only prevented if the player's character deals the death blow.
And from the Leotheras the Blind Guide from Equisite Pain of Proudmoore (US):
You have approximately 30 seconds to kill your Inner Demon and it should be the only thing you focus on if you have one. If you do not kill it in the time given then you will be Mind Controlled and the raid will have to kill you. Some classes may find it hard to deal with the Inner Demon. Here are some suggestions for each class:
Resto Druids: Change your weapon and go into Caster form, spam Wrath and Insect Swarm. Have at least +500 spell damage.
So from this, we can infer the following:
- At this level of progression, you're likely to have around 1500 or more +Healing. That converts to the 500 or more of the spell damage that Exquisite Pain recommends. A weapon swap to a high spell damage weapon wouldn't be a bad idea, though, assuming you have access to one that will give you more spell damage than does your healing weapon.
- Wrath spam is better DPS than is Starfire spam (at the expense of lower DPM, but this is an issue of generating burst) and doesn't suffer as much from spellcasting delay woes. You should also keep Moonfire ticking away on your demon and use Insect Swarm if you have it since your Inner Demon is susceptible to both Nature and Arcane damage.
While the DPS from Thorns isn't stellar, there's no reason not to use it for this fight.Avoid using any form of damage shield for this fight. If your Mirror Image dies due to damage taken from Thorns, you won't get credit for the killing blow and will get mind controlled (ouch!). (Thanks to Dellan for this information!)- You should not be healing yourself unless absolutely necessary. Even casting a Lifebloom is using a GCD that could otherwise have been spent to cast Wrath, Moonfire, or Insect Swarm. Trust in your other healers to keep you alive.
- Use Barkskin. That will reduce the damage you take by 20%, 40% of the total time you're facing your Demon. If possible, pop it while she's winding up for her first Shadow Bolt. It affects spell damage, too, and will let you get off a few Wrath spells that won't be delayed by incoming damage. For this reason, it's great to use when you already have your DoTs running. (To take full advantage of the spellcasting delay prevention, I'd avoid casting anything insta-cast unless you need to do so to stay alive.)
- If you have a +Healing trinket like the [Essence of the Martyr], use it. The EoM will grant you an additional 100 spell damage for 20 seconds (66% of the fight against your Demon). That's also a 20% increase to your +Damage, assuming you're running 500 spell damage. This works even better if you have a spell damage trinket such as [Xi'ri's Gift].
- Consider using consumables like spell damage food ([Crunchy Serpent] or [Poached Bluefish]) or [Superior Wizard Oil]. These are easy and relatively cheap increases to your spell damage.
- If you're still having trouble, consider speccing into 5/5 Starlight Wrath, shaving 0.5 seconds off the casting time of your Wrath spell. This could represent up to a 25% increase to your DPS output when spamming Wrath and will make your Wrath easier to cast when Barkskin is on cooldown.
These are just some extrapolated strategies from what I've been able to read about the fight. I'd love to hear from a few of you who have actually seen this fight.
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It has been some time since we did SSC regularly, but there was a bug with Leo that you would not want to use Thorns on anyone in the raid. If the Thorns tick is the final “Killing Blow” to the demon, then it will bug out and you will still get MC’d.
I used to equip enough spell damage to reach 500 (usually by swapping 2 peices and then my weapon when I got demons) but now with heal gear giving damage bonus, this should not be an issue. I would immediately hit Moonfire, Insect Swarm, then Rejuv and Lifebloom myself. Then I would hit Barkskin (this is incredibly important so your wrath spam will not be interrupted) and then I spam Wrath. Usually would have 10 seconds left before the demons ended.
The Demons are more susceptible to nature damage, so Insect Swarm and Wrath are your bread and butter.
Dellan: Interesting point about Thorns. I’ll edit my post to reflect what you’ve mentioned since that seems pretty important! According to WoWWiki, he’s susceptible to Arcane, Nature, and Holy (probably to help the DPS-challenged specs like Resto Druid, Holy Priest, Resto Shaman, and Holy Paladin) actually have a chance of killing their Inner Demon. Do you think he’s somehow MORE susceptible to Nature than to Arcane?
If Insect Swarm is effective, and Thorns isn’t, then it seems to me Thorns is bugged for this fight (or, it’s working as intended, and the bees are bugged). (There’s a much better pun there somewhere, but I haven’t had breakfast OR coffee this morning.)
Phae, your “Mirror, Mirror” pic busted me up!
Those of you working on it now are lucky now that we spelldamage from our healing gear!
First of all, I specced 12/0/49 when we were working this fight to get the reduced Wrath cast time and Insect Swarm. You demon does take increased damage from nature/arcane (but not one more than the other), which makes it easier.
What I always did was trinket (pick up Xiri’s Gift if you don’t have a trinket that increases spelldamage), moonfire, insect swarm, barkskin and then wrath repeatedly until he is dead, refreshing moonfire and insect swarm if needed. If you stay calm and follow that sequence it is fairly trivial.
Never never heal yourself – there should be healers assigned to Inner Demon targets and and if you die before you get your demon down then it is on them. If you waste a GCD on a heal for yourself you may regret it – an unlucky string of resists may mean that you need all the time required to kill the demon.
I can also confirm the bug with Thorns getting the killing blow does occur sometimes, so it is best not to have it on yourself. Hunters with pets have the same issue.
The leo fight for healers is ALOT easier than before. pre healing spell samage you actualy had to spec into balence for this fight or wear balence gear if you hoped to stay alive. This is a pretty simple fight for us now (I actualy like the caster weapon swap idea, might try to put my nathrezim dagger on now).
Moonfire (and insect swarm if you have it ^_^), barkskin, spam wrath till moonfire dot is up, put a lifebloom on yourself when necisary.
This isen’t just a thorns issue as it also affects pets getting killing blows. Thorns is not considered damage done by you, same as pets. Insect swarm is considerd damage done by you. This is the source of the problem as the game considers the impending MC broken when you get a killing blow on your inner demon. Of course the killing blow never comes if thorns or your pet kill them.
Actualy Trebh brings up an interesting point. Why are you dieing when there are other healers in the raid? it sounds like some sort of failure in the raid healer department. I would like to know what kind of healing asignments this raid gives out.
Don’t listion to that mirror Phae! think happy thoughts! (and whats wrong with big feet?) ^_^
DBM announces everyone who has inner demon. Theres usually one or two healers that get hit by it. By that same token, the rest of the healers (who aren’t healing your Warlock tank) should be healing the guys that are inner demon’d near them. No person should be worried about healing themselves when they have Inner Demon.
this fight is a utter joke and a nobrainer now with the healing/dmg change.
Pre change it was easily doable tho with a “normal” resto spec if you just used some blue dmg staff you equipp when you get demon with wizard oil on it. Then, simply, use 1x moonfire, then barkskin with wrath spam until barkskin wore off, then moonfire again.
And yeah, no thorns pets anything should attack the demon, as this kill wont count for you and you will be mindcontrolled therefor(waterelemental, hunter and warlock pet etc etc)
Deadly Boss Mods will tell you when you have it just a .5 sec earlier so that is handy.
Cast Barkskin / Starfire / Moonfire / Wrath / Wrath / Wrath (have you thorns up also).
I toss in a moonfire every now and then. As previous poster said make sure other healers are tossing up a hot or something easy on you so you don’t die and just concentrate on killin!
-Dra
I actually stay out of Tree of Life completely for the Leo fight, mobility is just too important and it’s one of the few fights where the ToL speed debuff actually matters.
I echo everything said here: with the change to heal it’s now a TON easier on the healers. My cycle is Moonfire – Trinket – Barkskin – Wrath – Wrath – Wrath etc. I do not bother switching weapons, it’s not worth the loss of a GCD unless you have a sweet mage weapon.
If you’re still have trouble with your inner demon, use consumables (Crunchy Serpent food, Wizard Oil) If you’re STILL having trouble, equip a handful of your best pieces of Balance gear. If you’re STILL having trouble, switch to a 18/0/43 spec. Having 1.5 second wraths that don’t get interrupted (and not having to spend 1.5 seconds on barkskin GCD) turns it into EZ mode.
And GREAT picture Phae, lol
I did this fight before the changes to +Heal = +Dmg, wearing about 387 +Damage buffed. In order to get the guy down happily I also added 7 points in Balance to get -0.5 to Wrath and an increased moonfire crit.
The procedure’s pretty easy:
* You get the Inner Demon spawning (I think the debuff is Insidious Whispers)
* Pop Barkskin
* Moonfire
* Wrath spam till he’s dead.
Don’t heal yourself, thats your fellow healer’s jobs. We also found that splitting the healers up, Druids + half Pallies to the north, and Priests + half Pallies to the south, with a shaman floating, helped. The priests slip Shields over each other, the Druids pop barkskin and the Pallies bubble. That way you don’t lose casting time.
[Super Rejuv Potions] are good if you have access because if the healers are thin this heals you as well as giving you mana back.
Thanks to everyone for your feedback! I’ve added information about not using Thorns, using spell damage consumables (like food and Wizard Oil), suggesting the use of a spell damage trinket, and considering speccing into the Starlight Wrath talent to reduce Wrath cast time by 0.5 seconds. I’m excited to try this fight myself now. ^_^
And big feet suck. Just imagine having to pass on [Orca-Hide Boots] because they’re the wrong size. I blame the release of WoW in China (Chinese Elves have daintier feet on average, or so I’m told).
I probably won’t see the Leo fight for quite some time. That said, the “mirror mirror” pic is definately all I needed to see, Resto4WIN.
Here’s my Leo strat (I’ve never been mind controlled):
Pre dmg to gear buff:
I swapped out gear to give myself at least 500 spell dmg. Also, my spec has 8 pts in balance for faster wrath casts. Upon demonspawn, I cast: Barkskin, Moonfire, wrath spam until dead. I usually have about 3-5 seconds to spare.
Post dmg to gear buff:
I keep my healing gear on (I’m at 1890 healing so equals approx. 630 dmg) and repeat the spell cycle above. Additionally with instashift, while in tree form, as soon as i cast moonfire, it auto switches to caster form.
Definitely don’t do anything but attack. No time for other buffs or heals. And make sure you have mana going into that phase.
You should be good with that.
When my guild was working on Leo, we didn’t have the healing to damage conversion either.
We ended up having everyone swap weapons and put on enough gear to hit 600 spell damage. I posted a macro in our guild forums and had our other healers modify as necessary. Mine equiped my MH/OH damage weapons and put up Barkskin. The same macro (with a different modifier key) put me back in Tree of Life with my healing MH/OH.
After the Barkskin GCD is over, the demon is up and I would hit ‘em with Moonfire and then spam Wrath ’til it was dead.
I ended up changing my spec because of this fight and have gone with 19/0/42 (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0tcrzbhZZxVIxcqMcot). Gives me both Insect Swarm and near-uninterruptible Wrath. Both items are nice for killing demons and regular farming. The only thing I miss is 5/5 Improved Regrowth for a bit of extra throughput when I’m refreshing Regrowth or just need to dump heals on someone.
Atahan
I run the same exact distribution, though I tweak a little because I’m somewhat addicted to improved regrowth. I shifted 3 from Shapeshifter (pvp talent) and 2 from Empowered Touch (not too useful w/o Naturalist) to Improved Regrowth. I find I use Regrowth proactively (especially with 2/5 tier 5) much more than the emergency NS/HT.
I never got around to macroing it in game but it’s easy enough to make a macro to take any guesswork out of it. You have plenty of time to dps down your add as long as you don’t panic.
Off the top of my head:
/castsequence reset=target Moonfire, Barkskin, Wrath, Wrath, Wrath, Wrath, Wrath, Moonfire, Moonfire, Moonfire, Moonfire, Moonfire, Moonfire, Moonfire, Moonfire, Moonfire, Moonfire, Moonfire, Moonfire, Moonfire, Moonfire
The million moonfires at the end are just for insurance – if you don’t have a pally in your group for concentration aura the pushback on wrath is annoying. Moonfire spamming the demon to death is a bit mana inefficent, but I stuck with it because it’s better dps against pushback (for 0/0/61, anyway).
re-ToL
I’ve always stuck in ToL form the entire fight (barring an inner demon). Getting out of whirlwind is important, but I’ve never had a problem lingering at 40 yards and still making it to the wall in time for whirlwind. On the off chance that you do catch an early whirlwind it’s just fine to regrowth or rejuv and swiftmend it away.
I did the fight a few times before the addition of spell damage to + healing and it wasn’t fun. After the patch it got much easier. I’m doing exactly what the others have pointed out: Moonfire, Barkskin, Wrath (until Barkskin down), Moonfire/Wrath till dead.
A few points I didn’t see mentioned:
If you have a Pally in your group, concentration aura helps so your wraths don’t get spell delayed as much by your demon’s hits.
It is absolutely vital you pick up your demon ASAP. Hit ‘V’ to turn on your enemy health bars and pull your eyes away away from your health bars when the demons are due.
If you use grid, I highly recommend adding “Insidious Whisper” to your debuffs list and make sure it’s displayed on Grid when it lands. Not only will you be able to see if you got a demon quickly while still watching health bars, if you didn’t you’ll also see if any healer got one so you can cover for them a bit.