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Before everything else,
getting ready is the secret to success.
-Henry Ford
Raiding, like many other things in life, is a venture whose results are
directly linked to the amount of preparation you put in. There are many
facets that contribute to this success. While the opinion of most
players is that your pre-raid gear is the most important area to
concentrate on, I personally feel it is one of the most insignificant.
Knowledge is the best weapon to wield and it falls directly on each
member of the raid to make sure they gather the information critical to
making it a rewarding experience for all.
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Know
your role –
As a druid the role
you’re expected to play could easily be the most diverse of
any class. No other class in the game can fill all four roles in a raid
like we can, so make sure you know what your guild (or PUG raid
– shudder- ) expects of you and plan accordingly. With the
upcoming changes in patch 3.1 expect to see more requests for you to
fill multiple roles based on raid composition and attendance. Most
encounters in the game play very differently from one archetype to the
next so the druid will need to invest a little more time than most
classes to understand these differences in their preparation.
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Know
the encounters –
Taking a few minutes to read up on the zone and bosses you’re
slated to tackle can have immense upside. Blizzard has done a great job
of diversifying their boss encounters in each raid instance. However,
there are a lot of recurring themes in these bosses, so prior raid or
zone knowledge can be very handy (WotLK raiding seems to be a lot of
ball avoidance and being able to move out of black holes on the
ground). Knowing the nuts and bolts of each boss encounter beforehand
can give you a big leg up on executing the strategy your raid leader
implements. Most fights in this game are tackled similarly from group
to group, but there is room for variance, so checking multiple sources
can be very beneficial. There are several excellent sites that have
compiled guides to all encounters in the game. I prefer bosskillers.com
but due to the popularity of the game there are multiple sources you
can peruse.
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Know
your surroundings –
Situational awareness goes
hand in hand with encounter knowledge. Most bosses in WotLK have one or
more abilities that require you to avoid or reposition. Failure to do
so will usually result in your death or a raid wipe. Nothing beats
seeing these abilities firsthand, but there are many videos out for
these encounters. Keep an eye out here at Ten Ton Hammer for upcoming
strat videos!
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;">Feral
–
One talent tree, two archetypes – the feral druid can fill
two raid roles with the switch of a few key feral talents. Whether you
are asked to function as a tank or as melee DPS there are several
similarities and several key differences to itemization and
consumables.
- Target
stats
- Melee
DPS
-
- Melee
Hit. The hit cap is 9% or 295
rating. Try and be as close as you can, preferably over 250. -
- Critical
Strike. Our cat form
increases our crit substantially through talents so look to be near 20%
crit in humanoid form. -
- Attack
Power. Feral druids also get
amazing attack power increases when in cat form so look to be around
1700 atk power in humanoid form at the onset of your raid career.
-
Feral Tank
-
- Dodge.
The mainstay of what makes druid tanking tick. No other class in the
game gets a dodge coefficient like the druid. Look to be near 20% dodge
in humanoid form. -
- Defense.
Defense rating for the druid is mainly purely for the dodge factor, as
roughly every 123 defense rating adds a percent to our dodge. You
can’t hit what you can’t touch. These two stats
along with agility all factor together to create your total dodge
amount. -
- Armor
Class. Our bear form grants
us 370% increase to our base armor class. Look to hitting around the
5400 mark in AC in humanoid form.
-
Consumables
-
Melee DPS
-
style="font-weight: bold;">Flask of Endless Rage
with its 180 atk power bonus is the flask of
choice.
-
style="font-weight: bold;">Elixirs of Accuracy,
Expertise or Deadly strikes
will raise your hit, expertise and crit by 45 respectively. Mate them
with an Elixir
of Mighty Fortitude for an
additional 350 health and 20 health per 5 second regeneration.
-
style="font-weight: bold;"> Poached Northern Sculpin
for 40 attack power and 40 stamina is an excellent food
choice.
-
Feral Tank
- -
style="font-weight: bold;"> Flask of Stoneblood
increases maximum health by 650 for two hours and persists through
death. - -
style="font-weight: bold;">Guru’s Elixir increases
all stats by 20 for one hour and makes a good compliment to style="font-weight: bold;">Elixir of Protection
that increases your armor by 800. - -
style="font-weight: bold;">Blackened Dragonfin
grants 40 agility and 40 stamina.
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;">Restoration
–
The masters of heal over time spells, restoration druids are formidable
tank healers. Druids can also assist in raid healing with Wild Growth
and quick instant heal spells. Traditionally druids have stacked a lot
of spirit for insane mana regen. Patch 3.1 will change the coefficient
of spirit in relation to mana regeneration, we will also see a change
to how we keep HoT’s active on tanks. Currently Lifebloom can
be kept up on multiple targets and since it ticks every second most
players were holding three stacks on their targets. 3.1 will see the
cost of the spell doubled, however allowing it to
“bloom” now refunds half the mana cost associated.
Mana Regeneration outside “the five second rule” is
being decreased via a health nerf to the amount of regen spirit grants
us, so grab up the MP5 gear!
-
Target stats
Keep in mind these are
PRE-RAID targets! Getting as close as you can will help you stay alive
and move forward.
- -
style="font-weight: bold;">Spell Power.
Around 1200 bonus healing is a reachable goal in pre raid gear, much
less than this and your effectiveness begins to wane. - -
style="font-weight: bold;">Mana Regen.
I would shoot for around 225 regen while casting, lofty goals but come
3.1 it will be staggeringly low. - -
style="font-weight: bold;">Haste.
Haste is a tricky stat and is most powerful when your mana regen is at
a high level. Temper your haste amount in relation to mana and healing
effectiveness. You will notice most healing leather in this expansion
has a lot of haste, and while it can be amazing at making you
a more complete healer, it can also drain your mana pool much too
quickly.
- Consumables
- -
style="font-weight: bold;"> Flask of Pure Mojo
increases your mana regen by 38 per 5 seconds, lasts 2 hours and
persists through death. With the release of 3.1 this is far and away
the flask of choice. - -
style="font-weight: bold;">Elixir of Lightning Speed
and Elixir
of Mighty Mageblood is a
great combo for a more experienced and geared player who
doesn’t need to worry about persistent effect. - -
style="font-weight: bold;">Mighty Rhino Dogs
provide 16 MP5 and are my personal favorite, best with mustard. -
style="font-weight: bold;">Cuttlesteak
with its 40 spirit and style="font-weight: bold;"> Firecracker Salmon
with 46 spell power are also very good choices. All three mentioned
foods also grant 40 stamina.
- UI
Mods
- -
style="font-weight: bold;">Omen
is a great threat meter and a must for all raid participants. Many will
tell you that only DPS and tanks really need to worry about threat
meters, however a smart healer will look at all available information
during a raid. A threat meter can warn you of a player who will need
healing as they pull agro from a tank as well as let you know if your
heals will create the same issue before a tank has secured the mob. - -
style="font-weight: bold;">Deadly Boss Mods.
An up to date, well made boss timer that provides invaluable
information for all end game encounters. - -
style="font-weight: bold;">Decursive
is a mod that helps you prioritize and organize your de-cursing and is
a must for any restoration druid.
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Balance
–
The Boomkin is a capable damage dealer that is amazing
against single target mobs and has situational effectiveness against
large groups of trash mobs. Besides formidable personal DPS, the
boomkin form gives your raid party increased crit % and a nice haste
improvement, insuring you a spot in every raid.
-
Target stats
- Critical
Strike. 15% in non
shapeshifted form is your target. Crit is THE stat of the balance druid
and most of your best talents increase it in one way or another. 15%
doesn’t sound like much but in your base form its roughly 450
crit rating.
- Haste
rating. Haste is also a
favorite stat of WoW devs and you will see it on almost all upgrades
you come across. Look to be at around 250 pre-raiding and expect this
to jump very far, very fast.
-
Hit. In the nuts and bolts of
final DPS tallies you won’t even be a blip on the radar
without having your hit maxed out. Fortunately for us we have 4% in the
bag with talents. Hit % needed for current raid bosses is 17%. Shadow
Priests give you 3%. Assuming the points spent and the shadow priest in
raid, you need 10% or 263 hit rating. You should be near that when you
begin raiding.
-
Consumables
- -
style="font-weight: bold;">Flask of the Frost Wyrm grants
125 bonus spell power and persists through death. - -
style="font-weight: bold;">Elixir of Lightning Speed
or Elixir
of Deadly Strikes for 45
haste or 45 crit ratings respectively, whichever you need most
improvement in. Couple it with style="font-weight: bold;"> Elixir of Spirit
for a nice 1-2 punch. - -
style="font-weight: bold;">Firecracker Salmon,
Cuttlesteak or Imperial Manta Steaks
are the foodstuffs of choice for the boomkin.
-
UI Mods
Virtually the same as Restoration as you need to keep an eye
on your threat generation and you may be called upon to de-curse.
"The
will to win is worthless if you do not have the will to prepare."
style="font-style: italic;">
—
Thane Yost
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