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Also, be sure to check out the recently added children’s clothes featuring a two-tone vinyl print of “Critter Form” as graciously designed by Valenna.

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By repeated request, here is a listing of pre-raiding gear to help you prepare for Naxxramas, organized by item slot and roughly ordered by my preference/recommendation. Because this is so lengthy, I’m breaking this article into two parts. Part II will include wrist, back, fingers, neck, and waist.

 Quick Links

• Head
• Shoulder
• Chest
• Hands
• Legs
• Feet

Head

1. [Helm of Anomalus] – Anomalus in the Nexus (Heroic)
   Leather, both a meta socket and a yellow socket, and among the highest Spell Power for an ILevel 200 helm make this my first choice of hats pre-raiding.
2. [Crown of Unbridled Magic] – Cache of Eregos in the Oculus (Heroic)
   I consider this to be pretty closely tied with the similarly itemized [Forgotten Shadow Hood] (they essentially trade Intellect and Spirit). I prefer the socket bonus on this one (12 Stamina vs. 8 Haste Rating). Contains meta and yellow sockets.
3. [Forgotten Shadow Hood] – Salramm the Fleshcrafter in The Culling of Stratholme (Heroic)
   Slightly less attractive than the [Crown of Unbridled Magic], this is the higher Spirit and lower Intellect of the two. Contains meta and blue sockets.
4. [Elder Headpiece] – Elder Nadox in Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom (Heroic)
   No socket on this item but a very respectable 91 Spell Power and astounding 77 Intellect make this a good choice.
5. [Cowl of the Dire Troll] – Trollgore in Drak’Tharon Keep (Heroic)
   No socket on this helm either, but an excellent 78 Spirit.

Compare these items

Shoulder

1. [Silent Spectator Shoulderpads] – Svala Sorrowgrave in Utgarde Pinnacle (Heroic)
   These shoulders are the only ILevel 200 option in leather, have the highest Spirit of all three, and include a blue socket.
2. [Runecaster’s Mantle] – Utgarde Keep (Heroic) Zone Drop 
   A yellow socket (worth approximately 16 Intellect for a blue-quality gem) makes this slightly more attractive than the [Mantle of Deceit] .
3. [Mantle of Deceit] – Dark Runed Chest in the Culling of Stratholme (Heroic)
   Although this shoulder piece lacks sockets, it has seven more Intellect and fourteen more Stamina than the [Runecaster’s Mantle], at the cost of 2 Spirit.

Compare these items

Chest

1. [Heroes’ Dreamwalker Robe] – 80 x Emblem of Heroism
   Leather, sockets, and half of the way there to the 2-piece set bonus! If you can get this, do so!
2. [Moonshroud Robe] – Tailoring (BoE)
   A perfect balance of stats with no itemization points wasted on spell crit or spell haste. All wrapped up in a pretty blue, belly-bearing package! The downside is definitely the cost. If you have the patience, it’s better to save your Heroic badges for the [Heroes’ Dreamwalker Robe].
3. [Ymirjar Physician’s Robe] – Utgarde Pinnacle (Heroic) Zone Drop
   This item is essentially a watered-down, leather version of the Moonshroud Robe with 12 less Intellect, 12 less Spirit, and 14 less Spell Power. Still, you can likely pick this piece up for around 200 gold which is substantially less than you can expect to pay for [Moonshroud Robe].
4. [Bauble Woven Gown] – Quest Reward from Junk in My Trunk
   If you prefer to gear up through questing and instancing, this is a good option. Has 13 less Intellect, 24 less Stamina, 21 fewer Spirit, and 24 less Spell Power than the [Moonshroud Robe].
5. [Raiments of the Titans] – Loken in Halls of Lightning (Normal)
   Similar to the [Bauble Woven Gown], this item trades 3 Intellect and 9 Spirit for 8 Stamina and a yellow gem slot.
6. [Wildscale Breastplate] – Leatherworking (BoE)
   The Wildscale Breastplate is sadly lacking on Stamina and has itemization points wasted on critical strike. Included here because so many Druids also happen to be leatherworkers.

Compare these items

Hands

1. [Heroes’ Dreamwalker Handguards] – 60 x Emblems of Heroism
   Between this and the [Heroes’ Dreamwalker Robe] (purchaseable with 80 Emblems of Heroism), you can start raiding with the 2-piece T7 set bonus and halfway to the 4-piece bonus to Nourish. The stats are great, too!
2. [Gloves of Token Respect] – Grand Widow Faerlina or Gluth in Naxxramas (Heroic)
   These are actually statistically superior the [Heroes’ Dreamwalker Handguards] but the set bonuses from the Dreamwalker set make them my first choice.
3. [Overlook Handguards] – The Prophet Tharon’ja in Drak’Tharon Keep (Heroic)
   Nearly identical to the [Moonshroud Gloves] (but much cheaper to acquire).
4. [Moonshroud Gloves] – Tailoring (BoE)
   Have lots of money and no time or interest in running instances to gear up? These gloves are nearly identical to the [Overlook Handguards] .
5. [Gloves of Glistening Runes] – Keristrasza in the Nexus (Heroic)
   While these gloves do have a bit of wasted critical strike rating, they also include a red gem slot which is clearly OM NOM NOM.
6. [Grotto Mist Gloves] – Hadronox in Azjol’Nerub (Heroic)
   The only leather option, the [Grotto Mist Gloves] include a red socket with a +4 Spirit socket bonus.
7. [Sterile Flesh-Handling Gloves] – Ebon Blade Revered
   These have the highest Intellect and Stamina values of any of the ILevel 200 gloves and share the highest Spell Power value with [Gloves of the Crystal Gardener].
8. [Gloves of Distorted Time] – Chrono-Lord Epoch in the Culling of Stratholme (Heroic) Includes a yellow socket, ideal for an Intellect or Intellect/Spell Power gem. Unfortunately, the socket bonus is +4 Stamina.
9. [Gloves of the Crystal Gardener] – Ormorok the Tree-Shaper in Nexus (Heroic)
   High Spirit and great spell power from an easily farmable boss make these a good choice.

Compare these items

Legs

1. [Earthgiving Legguards] – Leatherworking (BoE)
   Easily the best choice for a Restoration Druid just beginning Naxxramas, you can generally find these on the Auction House for around 1,000 gold.
2. [Kilt of the Forgotten One] – Herald Volazj in Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom (Heroic)
   Your only leather option of the ILevel 200 legs, the [Kilt of the Forgotten One] has a good amount of Stamina and Spell Power as well as the highest Spirit value.
3. [Breeches of the Caller] – Ingvar the Plunderer in Utgarde Keep (Heroic)
   While these pants have the lowest Spell Power of any of the ILevel 200 legs, they have the highest Intellect, making them a good choice to bolster mana regeneration. As a bonus, they also include red and blue gem slots.
4. [Cyanigosa’s Leggings] – Cyanigosa in the Violet Hold (Heroic)
   These legs have nice, well-rounded stats. They are probably slightly easier to acquire than the [Opposed Stasis Leggings] (whose stats are identical) because of the easy access to and lower completion time of the Violet Hold instance.
5. [Opposed Stasis Leggings] – Commander Kolurg or Commander Stoutbeard in the Nexus (Heroic)
   Identical to [Cyanigosa’s Leggings].

Compare these items

Feet

1. [Arcanic Tramplers] – Alexstrasza’s Gift in The Eye of Eternity (25-Man)
   Despite dropping in a raid instance, these boots are BoE and can be picked up off the auction house. More Intellect, Stamina, and Spell Power than the [Earthgiving Boots] (though 6 less Spirit), and the smidge of haste won’t kill you (just don’t tell the Tree League).
2. [Boots of Septic Wounds] – Patchwerk or Gluth in Naxxramas (25-Man)
   With a +16 Spirit gem in the blue socket, these would be slightly better than the [Earthgiving Boots], though the difference is such that you might base your decision on which you could buy cheaper.
3. [Earthgiving Boots] – Leatherworking (BoE)
   Epic leather. ‘Nuff said.
4. [Boots of Transformation] – Gal’darah of Gundrak (Heroic)
   These are pretty close to the [Footwraps of Teleportation], having a red slot instead of a yellow and preferring Spirit over Intellect. These, however, are leather and so are ranked higher in desirability.
5. [Footwraps of Teleportation] – Xevozz in The Violet Hold (Heroic)
   Has a yellow slot and plenty of Intellect. May be more difficult to acquire than the [Boots of Transformation] given the random assortment of bosses that can appear in Violet Hold.
6. [Aurora Slippers] – Tailoring (BoE)
   While these only have an iLevel of 187, I’m including them because they’re probably going to be pretty cheap to acquire.

Compare these items

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Ghostcrawler announced yesterday that Nourish may get its 20% effectiveness increase from the HoT conferred by Wild Growth in an effort to make Nourish a more attractive raid heal. Bamft of Azshara (US) originally posed this suggestion in the Healing forums:

Subject: GC: Allow WG to count towards Nourish bonus?
I know I’d use the spell a lot more if I could WG a party and then tab/nourish them all off of that HoT. Just something to consider.

To which Ghostcrawler encouragingly responded:

Yeah, there is a good chance we’ll do this.

This change would mean that a Druid could better leverage Nourish by casting Wild Growth on her raid group, watching to see who had been hit with the HoT, and then patch heal whoever needed it with Nourish, effectively switching it over to the “tank heal” graphs of Direct Healing in Wrath. In this case, Regrowth would not get the +20% bonus from the [Glyph of Regrowth] which could make Nourish a more competitive option.  This news comes hot on the heels of an earlier announcement that Blizzard will look to both increase talent-based benefits to Nourish and to add a Nourish-specific Glyph to help increase its viability relative to Regrowth:

We think there is some validity to the notion that Nourish is not propped up enough by talents. It will also be getting a glyph at some point.

Break out the tinsel and Winter Veil lights, everyone. We might have a new toy to play with soon!

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Currant had known deep in the pit of her stomach, that the moment the giant mounted its drake that things were about to get bad.  Had she known just how bad, maybe she would have run back the other way.  As it was, she was committed, along with the unlucky souls she was trying desperately to protect.

Her massive paw crashed down on on the skull of yet another unliving Vrykul and she could feel it collapse like the shell of an egg, spatter and all.  She bared her bloodied teeth and shook her muzzle back and forth as Valenna left a dagger in the corpse at her feet taking the fallen Vrykul’s spear.  She turned and threw in a single motion that defied Currant’s ability to figure out how she’d bothered finding her target, and the shaft sped upward, barely arcing.  All about them, the steaming corpses of the Vrykul’s companions littered and stained the snow, bones jutting upward like the broken stalks of rotting plants.

Valenna’s eyes narrowed in critical appraisal of her throw and she panted, her breath turning to mist as she did, "That’s the last spear."  The sound of worry in her voice was unmistakable, even through the filter of Currant’s ursine senses.  Currant could hear the drake screaming in pain from the spear, watching as its wings folded and the creature began a deceptively lazy drift toward the ground, black blood trailing behind it like streamers.  Valenna bent and retrieved the blade she’d left in the corpse and wiped the gore on the leg of her armor.

The ice-crusted thing on the drake’s back – Skadi if the informants were to be trusted – merely grunted in annoyance and leapt from it’s back as if it were any other surface and slammed into the ground, shifting bodies and snowpack alike with the impact.  Snow sprayed about its fur-bound feet and settled around it, obscuring for the briefest of moments, its features.

When the snow settled, Currant found herself gazing into the visage of hate.  Skadi was slicked in the rime of Northrend, from the bristle of the fur on its armor to the glowing blue spots that stared out at her from the blackness beneath its horned helmet.  It opened its cracked lips and bellowed.  The sound that issued forth was nearly visible, the air seeming to shake.  While her companions winced, Currant roared in challenge, and charged forward just as it did the same.

Valenna seemed to ripple and fade as she dashed through the corpses of Skadi’s minions with the grace of a dancer.  Valenna’s war-sister Khat and an insane gnome with spiked red hair approached less gracefully from Skadi’s sides, their heavy armor slowing them some, and they lashed out at the giant’s legs, their massive blades biting deep, but not deeply enough to slow it.

Currant slammed into the giant, the mass of her bear form almost overwhelmed by the mass of the undead hero that met her, and its hammer crashed down on her head.  She felt it through the heavy fur that covered her, and even caught the crack of the hammer hitting her skull and her world faded to a blur.  Her ears stopped working and something inside her head was violently trying to get out.  Behind her eyes it threw itself from side to side, pushing at her and scraping at her ears, threatening to split them with the repetition of contact, scrubbing her insides raw.

She looked again and Valenna had appeared behind the hateful thing that had landed in their midst, and was lashing out with her glistening wet blades, severing tendons and straps of leather with equal abandon.  The gnome shoved a blade of his own through Skadi’s leg, only to be backhanded and sent sprawling through the snow and cutting a miniature furrow that only stopped at a stone wall.  Khat ducked under the whirling storm of Skadi’s weapons and backed out to a temporarily safer distance.

Currant could taste blood in her mouth and feel it seeping from her ears, the sticky treacle matting her fur.  A small song coursed through her mind, like the distant hum of bees.  Soon it turned to the creaking of branches and the rustle of leaves.  The taste of blood became the clean crisp sensation of an icy stream and with sudden clarity, Currant took in the sounds of battle around her: the creak of leather, the gentle roughage of metal on metal and the soft thunk of weapons biting flesh.

With a suddenness, the bright blue in the depths of Skadi’s helmet shifted and Currant could see it looking past her and toward the last of her companions, Phaelia.  It too, had heard the gentle songs of restoration her magic brought, and somehow even its dead mind knew she was the most dangerous of its opponents.

It lifted its bloody hammer from Currant and turned toward the singer.

Currant blinked and lunged forward, a black-clawed paw catching the giant’s pelvis and pulling it to its knees.  It turned back, rage filling the air, and the three warriors pressed their attacks.  Currant dug her claws into every rotted opening she could find, holding the monster still while Khat and the gnome brutally hacked off its legs at the knees.  Currant bit hard into its chest and it began to thrash, knocking Khat to the ground but exacting a much higher toll from the gnome.  The poor thing’s skull broke apart messily as Skadi’s blindly thrashing hammer struck home.  His corpse fell spraying to the ground, painting the snow much differently than the zombies that had fallen before him.

One of Khat’s massive blades severed an arm at the elbow and Valenna managed to find enough of an opening to break in and nearly sever the thing’s head with two precisely executed slashes.  It was all the opening Currant needed.  She lunged forward and grabbed Skadi’s head in her mouth as it lolled about uselessly and she wrenched hard, pulling the entire thing to the ground.  She held it there while Valenna and Khat finished dismembering it, working her powerful teeth over the helmet to the weaker faceguard.  When she had it solidly in position, she bit down hard.  The helmet bent and broke and the gut-wrenching taste of dead flesh filled her mouth.

She shook it free and stepped back, her form flowing backward from that of a bear to that of a night elf.  She turned and spat out what was left of Skadi.  Phaelia was breathing heavily and when their eyes met, she shook her head, "I…I couldn’t…it was…too fast."

Breathing more heavily than she realized, Currant nodded, "It wasn’t your fault.  I’ll see to him."  She turned toward the fallen gnome and began to call on Elune.

A lot is being said these days about Druid tanking viability.  Some of it is well-informed, some of it is apologist, and some of it is downright lunatic fringe.  We all have opinions and insight and math but sadly, many of us seem to be thinking similar things.

Since hitting 80, I’ve only tanked a handful of encounters and fewer instances, spending most of my time as DPS.  This isn’t really a problem, it just isn’t what I expected.  I spend most of my time as a cat and was pleased to find the other night that I was competitive with other DPS in a raid.  I was only pulling 2200 DPS in my mostly pre-heroic gear (crafted epics and leveling blues mostly), but I was pleased to beat out more than one hunter.  Our career DPSers still did better than I did because they really know what they’re doing, but hey, not bad for a mostly-tank, right?

At any rate, I’ve been complaining recently about a lot of the changes, but though I whine and cry to my friends, I’m usually very tempered in my actual responses.  That said, there are some issues that still need addressing.  Commonly cited on the forums recently are issues with AoE tanking in general and Swipe in particular, itemization, and a lack of tanking tools.

Let’s look briefly at each:

AoE Tanking.  Swipe.

By some measures, Swipe allows us the greatest AoE TPS of any single AoE tanking ability, and few of us will contest that.  The problems with the ability are tactical, really, and much of it can be solved with less spastic DPS.

First, it’s a targeted frontal cone.  Most of the time, this fact is immaterial and it seems to me that the ‘cone’ is nearly 180-degrees, making it a VERY nice frontal cone.  It strikes EVERYTHING in that area.  Again, very very nice.  It can crit like crazy given the typical Feral’s crit chance and means that when tanking multiple mobs using Swipe, we are pretty much never Rage-starved.  It does nice damage, to boot.

Problematically, it is targeted.  In theory, this is a null-issue as we can simply re-target and keep on that Swipe button.  Realistically, I often lose sight of my target and it’s not unknown for me to fail to notice that my target has moved out of range and I’m just sitting there for several seconds.  As any tank knows, you can lose mobs in those seconds depending on the situation.

A far more pressing problem is mob pathing.  Far too often a mob will run behind us and out of Swipe.  While no tank actually wants a target behind them, those with true AoE abilities can afford to ignore them if they need to, in spite of the hit to mitigation they’ll take.  It’s usually trash that does this and therefore the loss of mitigation is merely annoying.  For the Druid, however, a mob behind us is a mob that is literally not being tanked.

More commonly cited is the frequency with which a Druid tank loses mobs in a pack to the DPS, especially when there’s AoE DPS being thrown about with reckless abandon.  While I’m of the opinion that the above-mentioned positioning issues are largely to blame, it has been pointed out that this could be avoided by allowing Swipe more front-loaded threat.  Such a change was recently announced.

This runs the risk of giving us far too much threat, but does allow for our laying off the Swipe button long enough to work in Barkskin, Demoralizing Roar, Mangle and other abilities without materially impacting our threat.  Interesting.

There is also a noted lack of tanking tools.

In general, I don’t think this is a huge problem.  I’m seriously pissed off that Warriors have appropriated some of my abilities (Enraged Regeneration and Damage Shield in particular – especially since both appear to be improved versions of what Druids have, at least in some ways) it’s probably only fair, with a short cooldown Barkskin usable in forms and Survival Instincts being given to Druids.  Still, it rankles.

But Druids do have fewer tanking tools.  The common retort is that "Druids can heal and buff and DPS."  Really?  As the player of a Druid I didn’t know any of that.  Seriously.  I’m glad you guys are here to tell me these things.  :eyeroll:

This is not the post to debate the merits of Druid utility.  Suffice it to say that Druids sacrifice breadth of utility in a role for breadth of utility in a class.  Warriors do the reverse.  Druids have fewer tanking tools.  Period.  End of debate.  This is true.  I don’t need a lot of tools to tank and I’m not actually concerned with asking for more.  Would a true AoE ability be nice?  Absolutely.  Can I make it work without one?  Absolutely.

This, however, leads us to itemization.

Because we have so few tools to tank with, we also have fewer statistics we can use.  Bears have Agility, Armor, Stamina, Dodge, Expertise and Hit to worry about in our tanking gear.  Warriors and Paladins add in Strength, Parry, Block and Defense.  Because all tanks share rings, trinkets, cloaks, and necklaces, this often puts us in the unenviable position of using gear with a lot of wasted itemization.  This is especially true if, as many posters have said, the armor items will still be best in slot, just by smaller margins.

True, we can use Strength to raise our AP, but it’s more efficient and practical to get that other places.  Strength is like Haste: it’s okay if it’s there, but we’ll never go looking for it.

Add in that we’re using Rogue gear for our leather an we see a near pathological resistance to itemizing for Bears at all.  Holy Paladins, Moonkin, Restoration Druids…all have specialized itemization needs as well, and continue to get it.  Cats get by just fine using Rogue gear, so it’s not totally bleak, but Dire Bear is increasingly looking like something we’re only supposed to do when there aren’t any willing plate-wearers around.

We still tank and we still tank well, don’t misunderstand me.  But when the spec and role you want to play has gone from picking up the scraps from other classes (pre-BC) to getting targeted itemization (pre-Wrath) and then back to picking up scraps from other classes (now), all while some other specs continue to receive targeted itemization, it makes you wonder what the game wants you doing.

Blizzard has given us new talents, allowed us to be competitive for the leather we do use, and made many fundamental changes we’ve needed for ages though, so I can’t help but feel that the state of the Druid as a class is pretty good.  I even think the upcoming armor change will ultimately be beneficial in freeing up itemization options (though I have some real issues with the implementation – it feels too much like a Band-Aid).  I just want reassurances that I won’t be hearing: "This is so much easier with a Warrior/Paladin," when I tank for much longer.

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If the post title seems familiar, it’s because I already wrote this post once during the WotLK beta, using the then-applicable values for +Healing, coefficients, talents, and Glyphs. A lot has changed since then (for the worse, unfortunately) so we’re due for a second look at the various direct heals in Wrath, their relative efficiency, and relative effectiveness. Today we’re going to look at the following spells:

• Regrowth without the [Glyph of Regrowth] used as a raid heal and cast on a target without Regrowth
• Regrowth with the [Glyph of Regrowth] used as a tank heal and cast on a target with Regrowth already
• Nourish used as a raid heal and cast on a target without Rejuvenation, Regrowth, or Lifebloom
• Nourish used as a tank heal and cast on a target with Rejuvenation, Regrowth, or Lifebloom
• Nourish used as a tank heal and cast on a target with Rejuvenation, Regrowth, AND Lifebloom with the 4-piece T7 set bonus
• Healing Touch
• Healing Touch with the [Glyph of Healing Touch]

Since our goal is to compare the maximized version of each of these spells, we’re going to assume the following talents have been taken:

• Regrowth: Improved Regrowth, Empowered Rejuvenation, Moonglow 
• Nourish: Tranquil Spirit, Moonglow 
• Healing Touch: Naturalist, Empowered Touch, Tranquil Spirit, Moonglow 

All spells will be assumed to have been cast in Tree of Life form, and all benefit from Gift of Nature and Master Shapeshifter.

Continue reading ‘Direct Healing in Wrath’…

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