Casual Healin'

Maybe I missed the announcement in the buzz about bloody iphones, but there is a blizzard authenticator for blackberry.

It costs a whole dollar, but for the knowledge that you really can’t be hacked (unless you are really trying to be I guess!) its worth it.

Last night marked the first night of progression 10 man raiding for Critical.
That’s a lie actually, as we have been doing Ulduar 10 man for a few weeks now, but last night was the first time it was formally agreed within the guild that this would be the way forward for the next few weeks.

A great turnout  (mostly guild officers!) let us run through VOA10 first (see my earlier post) then move on to ToC10. I hadn’t previously entered the place, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. Some things I read suggested  it was a bit easy, some suggested hard enough for the level. I had read my strats for the first three fights, but that still doesn’t substitute for actually being there and doing it.

Northerend Beasts is the first fight, and it was quite a lot of fun. I managed to wipe us the first time by running the wrong way for an Icehowl charge. Second time was a tank (who shall remain nameless eh Pala!) turning one of the Worms the wrong way and causing a ice-breath wipe. third time was the charm, everything worked fine and we made it throw relatively unscathed. The basic strategy here is to follow the phases – but just heal through them.

Phase 1 sees Gormok the Impaler paraded out to cause troubles. There are two abilities used here that healers need to watch for – Impale and Snowbolding. Impale causes a 150% damage de-buff, plus about 4k bleed damage per two seconds. It should only ever get applied to the tanks, so just heal through it. There is no way to avoid to dispell the effect, however the amount it is applied can be reduced by disarming him as often as possible, so a rogue is ideal, or if no rogue is available, then a prot warrior as the main tank. Snowbolds get tossed around too – these little buggers will jump on your head and start munching – removing your ability to attack anything. Our strategy was for whomever was affected to move in as close to the melee DPS as possible and wait for them to whack-a-mole. Apparently there are better strategies, but I can’t make sense of how they work, and this worked quite well for us (we made it through this phase three times unscathed). Gormok also does a stomp which will stun anyone casting through it for eight seconds. So (as I always remind readers!) get DBM and make sure you get the warnings, and just stop casting. This is easy for a drood as we mostly use insta-cast spells, which wont have a problem with this, so just make sure that you are not using Nourish when the warning comes up. Stomp does big AOE damage to the raid too, but this can be mitigated with a friendly priest casting Levitate on everyone. Keep up Levitate throughout the fight and things will be fine. Plus, a tree looks so cute dangling in mid air!

Phase 2 is the worms – Acidmaw and Dreadscale. Tanks need to keep them faced away from the raid as they both have one-shot raid kill abilities for anyone in front of them. There are two phases, which see them above or below ground, but this wont affect the straight up healing required. Healers need to watch out for the acid or fire debuff put on them – it can’t be removed except through using the game mechanics which is to go to the opposite worm for the debuff to remove itself. Players with this debuff will need extra healing until it is removed, so it is probably a good idea to add “Paralytic Toxin” and “Burning Bile” to your list to make sure you throw some extra heals at effected raiders.

Phase 3 (and last for this boss) is Icehowl – who is, imho, the cutest damn boss in the game. The tank will take Icehowl to a wall, and tank him with their back against it, which allows them not to be thrown around by Icehowl’s Whirl ability. Every 30-60 seconds Icehowl will disengage, move to the centre, and randomly target someone to charge. Everyone is thrown back against the wall, stunned for a short period, then given a burst of speed, and needs to get out of his way. If you do, he will crash into the wall and stun himself, at which time damage against him is dramatically increased. If you get hit he will probably one-shot you, and will then enrage and proceed to probably one-shot everyone else.

So get out of his way.

Do all that, and the first “boss” of the Trial is over.

This time around, the loot was two pieces of mail, one resto shammy which no one could use, and the other which our only possible taker was a hunter, who already had better gear. So disenchantment was shared by all (pun intended!)

Lord Jaraxxus is next, looking like something straight out of TBC. this fight is high damage, but simple mechanics – get out of the fire, and stay clear of adds. Other than that it is just tank and spank. Any raiders with interrupts need to try and stop Fel Fireball from being cast.

Leigon Flame is the other ability to watch out for. A raider will with cast on them will spawn flames under their feet for six seconds. Run away from anyone else to avoid ill effects.

Healers should add “Incinerate Flesh” to the list of debuffs for this fight. This debuff needs to have 30k of healing performed on it (none of which will reach the target) or it will explode and create Disco… err I mean Burning Inferno.

Plate and Melee DPS loot this time… *sigh*

The Faction Champions are next. *Urrgh* This is a 10 v. 6 pvp encounter which your tanks are useless for, and if they are carying a secondary DPS spec, should change to it. an argument errupted in the group as to how to tackle this – some of us thought take out the DPS, others wanted to take down the healers. The Raid Leader settled the discussion with healers as our main target.

If healers are to be the first target, and there is a resto-druid in the six, then target them first. Everyone in the raid with crowd control needs to use it, and use it constantly. Mage’s need to sheep, preferably a healer, rogue’s sap, kick, stomp, bite and … sorry, getting carried away there. I really dislike this fight, its very scattered, with no clear strategy as a healer. Maybe PvP’ers enjoy it, but I’m not one, so I can’t say I do.

But I did like the loot…. Binding Light

I really should have passed on it so that our priest could take it, but I still had a blue trinket, and I just couldn’t resist!

We proceeded to wipe a few times on the Twins, and being that it was already over an hour past the end of our normal raid time, we called it quits for the night. All in all, a successful night of progression!

So I’ve downed Kolaron twice now, once each on Rohman and Soonti, and each time I’ve gotten the tier gloves that drops for that toon - Malfurion’s Handguards of Conquest and Kel’Thuzad’s Gloves of Conquest
How good is that! That also equals once in 10 and 25 man.

Kolaron is actually a fairly easy fight, once your tanks know what to do. There is no need for a heal strategy – its just keep everyone up…