World of Warcraft XIII: Even Aspects Get Nerfed

[Expf]

Even though the lead didn't say it, the main reason we stuck with 2 healers was to meet the dps reqs. I mean we barely managed to kill the tendons in 1 shot on Spine with 2 healers plus a single tank and we'd lose 33k dps on Madness if we went with 3 healers which would probably mean the berserk timer beats us.

Which "check" are you missing, specifically? The berserk timer is rarely if ever the issue. There are many ways of fixing that that doesn't involve stressing out your healers. If it's about failing to kill the Mutated before 2nd Impale, you can just use Bubble/BoP &/or other CDs to survive the 2nd one. If the problem only affects the 4th platform, you should just blow hero on the 4th platform so you can kill the Mutated before Bolt lands (there is very little point in using Hero on the 1st platform or final phase since for many classes it does not stack well with Nozdormu's buff). Also, your disc priest can easily do 10k+ with just attonement. You appear to be missing the 4% Physical damage taken debuff so your rogue should consider going Combat (or have your hunter get a pet that provides the debuff). The 3% damage buff could also be useful if your mage can go Arcane.

[Alarra]

I'm not actually spec'd into atonement currently, though I was thinking that might be something to try, especially if we do decide to 3 heal.

[Karoht]

Even though the lead didn't say it, the main reason we stuck with 2 healers was to meet the dps reqs. I mean we barely managed to kill the tendons in 1 shot on Spine with 2 healers plus a single tank and we'd lose 33k dps on Madness if we went with 3 healers which would probably mean the berserk timer beats us.

That's why I'm thinking we can go with 2 heals, 2 tanks on Madness as that won't cost us as much DPS as going 3 heals, 1 tank.

On Madness, average DPS is 40K and up on LFR.
Easiest platform order is Green Red Gold Blue. Gold and Blue both boost your DPS in big ways, and on top of that, once Deathwing starts casting Cataclysm, the arm/wing takes double damage. If your DPS is too low, I would strongly advise figuring out why that is, or at least see what can be boosted on a case by case basis.

@World of Logs
Stuff you can check. Spoilered for Length
Healers

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-Certain spells should make up a majority of your healing. You're entire breakdown isn't important, but your top 5 should be your top 5. For example, Resto Druids Top 5 on Ultraxion should be Wild Growth, Efflorescence, Lifebloom, Rejuvination, Regrowth/Swiftmend, with pretty much all other effects lower on the scale. Know your top 5 for each fight. This is actually why I like healing meters, because this is one of the useful things it can tell you.
-Did any of your healers run oom? Check the cooldowns, were they used?

Tanks

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-Cooldown usage. Things like Block and Holy Shield should see high usage. If you have a 4pc set on your tanks, maybe try to line up the timing with events such as the Cataclysm cast, which is usually in line with the worst of the the Hemorage damage.
-Impale. Sure, you can heal through it, but it might be better on your healers to just use a cooldown anyway.
-Certain DPS talents are good to make use of as well. For example, our Warrior Tank would save his Retaliaion for the first set of Elementium Terrors to speed up their demise. The Paladin would hit Wings about 10 seconds before they popped out.

DPS

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-On Ultraxion, DPS needs to be around 30K as an average.
-Consider a Bloodlust on 4th platform start, to burn down the tentacle faster.
-Cooldown abilities and trinkets should all be popped once Cataclysm begins to cast. Use a CD pot on the last platform.
-On Logs, check for DoT uptime. 97% or better is what you want to see from anyone who uses DoTs, so your Shadow Priests, your Warlocks, your Boomkin, your Mage.
-AoE spells don't work on the mini-tentacles that pop up during Hemorage but they do work on the bloods. Common mistake is to reverse the two.
-If you have a Boomkin, Thorns should have a near 100% uptime on a tank. Any time that Boomkin gets full Solar Power, the first thing s/he should do is Thorns on the tank.

Also, someone pointed something very important to me yesterday.
The new talent calculator?
Check all of the abilities under your class. Quite a few of them had the Glyph effects rolled right into them. Swiftmend still gets Efflorescence for example. Regrowth had the Glyph effect rolled into it as well. That makes me really excited to see what they are going to do with the new Glyphs.

@MoP Alpha

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No really.

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My contact confirmed the internal alpha. Odds are I'll be in on the friends and family alpha, which should be really soon.

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MoP Beta by end of march, I'd bet money on it.

[Dublock]

...(there is very little point in using Hero on the 1st platform or final phase since for many classes it does not stack well with Nozdormu's buff).

...I wish I knew that sooner.

If MoP Alpha is around now (I say that to avoid debates/whatever) does that mean we are looking at a summer launch? So I don't have to worry about pesky school getting in the way (College so my summer is May til last week of August :P)

[Karoht]

...I wish I knew that sooner.

If MoP Alpha is around now (I say that to avoid debates/whatever) does that mean we are looking at a summer launch? So I don't have to worry about pesky school getting in the way (College so my summer is May til last week of August :P)

I've only said this like, 6 other times, but I'll say it again.
Blizzard is trying for an 18 month duration on expansions rather than the previous 24+
A summer MoP launch puts us at the 18 month mark flawlessly.
D3 = Early-April/Mid-May
MoP = July/August
HotS = Oct/Nov/Dec

[Expf]

-If you have a Boomkin, Thorns should have a near 100% uptime on a tank. Any time that Boomkin gets full Solar Power, the first thing s/he should do is Thorns on the tank.

That's an interesting idea, but I wonder is it worthwhile? I looked into this question for a bit and so far I've found very little information on whether it is worth casting or not. In my gear and in Solar Eclipse, Thorns does 4.3k (never crits) while Wrath does 24.7k (can crit for 206%). Assuming a 30% critical strike chance (of which 10% are from raid buffs), Wrath does 32.6k damage per cast. If we assume the tank has 35% avoidance and the creature has a 1.8 sec (after slows) attack speed, then Thorns will do 31.1k damage (7.2 hits over 20 sec) per cast. I don't know if Thorns can proc Spellweave or not, though. The difference is so small that it will depend highly on the circumstances (primarily how often your tank gets hit).

[Skios]

So we got our second Madness kill tonight, and it actually caused someone to ragequit the guild. One of the resto shamans had been racking up a lot of (generally minor) rules infractions, such as discussing loot distribution in the middle of the raid, persistently showing up late both at the start of the raid and after the break, that sort of thing. As a result she was rotated out for a druid alt tonight, and we ended up getting a double Maw of the Dragonlord drop. They ended up going to the other resto shaman and the aforementioned druid alt. When the benched resto shaman was informed of the fact, we got a stream of profanity punctuated by a /gquit.

[Karoht]

That's an interesting idea, but I wonder is it worthwhile? I looked into this question for a bit and so far I've found very little information on whether it is worth casting or not. In my gear and in Solar Eclipse, Thorns does 4.3k (never crits) while Wrath does 24.7k (can crit for 206%). Assuming a 30% critical strike chance (of which 10% are from raid buffs), Wrath does 32.6k damage per cast. If we assume the tank has 35% avoidance and the creature has a 1.8 sec (after slows) attack speed, then Thorns will do 31.1k damage (7.2 hits over 20 sec) per cast. I don't know if Thorns can proc Spellweave or not, though. The difference is so small that it will depend highly on the circumstances (primarily how often your tank gets hit).

It will never show as your damage, hence it is considered by most to be a DPS loss. Consider the following.
1-When I check Skada, I look at tanks to see what damage I caused with Thorns. On Ultraxion, my Thorns did 1 million. Yeah. And I'm Resto. Ret Aura does about the same damage.
2-When you hit Solar Eclipse, Wrath will cost you Solar Power. Think of this as more mileage from your Mastery. It's kind of like another DoT. And the duration/cooldown will for the most part will line up just fine with you hitting Eclipse again.
3-It's also 1 GCD, you can probably make sure you squeeze it in when transitioning between platforms, or shortly before certain events such as the blob adds. More adds attacking the tank means more chances for it to hit, meaning more damage. It's fire and forget, don't forget.
4-Heavily Skewed example. On Alysrazor, Thorns would hit for 20K each hit on those Baby Birds. Ret Aura hit for about 32K each hit. Retribution on a Warrior Tank hit for something crazy like +100K each hit. On Baleroc it ended up to be pretty high damage and worth it as well, and we had a Dodge tank who would literally dodge all 4 decimation blades.
It's a small thing, but it adds up. A bit situational though. If you have a Resto Druid in the raid, it's better that they do it, but if not, the 1 GCD isn't going to kill you.

[Fleeing Coward]

On Madness, average DPS is 40K and up on LFR.
Easiest platform order is Green Red Gold Blue. Gold and Blue both boost your DPS in big ways, and on top of that, once Deathwing starts casting Cataclysm, the arm/wing takes double damage. If your DPS is too low, I would strongly advise figuring out why that is, or at least see what can be boosted on a case by case basis.

Well, DPS is our main problem then. We're already doing the platforms in that order and our 3 DPS offspecs are doing closer to 30k than 40k on Madness.

@World of Logs
Stuff you can check. Spoilered for Length
Healers

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-Certain spells should make up a majority of your healing. You're entire breakdown isn't important, but your top 5 should be your top 5. For example, Resto Druids Top 5 on Ultraxion should be Wild Growth, Efflorescence, Lifebloom, Rejuvination, Regrowth/Swiftmend, with pretty much all other effects lower on the scale. Know your top 5 for each fight. This is actually why I like healing meters, because this is one of the useful things it can tell you.
-Did any of your healers run oom? Check the cooldowns, were they used?

I think our healers have things sorted out pretty well. I'm working on squeezing an extra Guardian of Ancient Kings in for Madness and trying to break myself of the habit of judging on CD since it no longer gives mana but other than that there's not too much we can do.

As for mana issues, only time I went OOM was for Madness and that was due to alot of us not been prepared for Phase 2 on normal. Already using my mana CDs pretty much the second they come off CD and the only strain placed on our healing is when we occasionally don't spread fast enough and over half the raid gets hit by a tentacle.

Tanks

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-Cooldown usage. Things like Block and Holy Shield should see high usage. If you have a 4pc set on your tanks, maybe try to line up the timing with events such as the Cataclysm cast, which is usually in line with the worst of the the Hemorage damage.
-Impale. Sure, you can heal through it, but it might be better on your healers to just use a cooldown anyway.
-Certain DPS talents are good to make use of as well. For example, our Warrior Tank would save his Retaliaion for the first set of Elementium Terrors to speed up their demise. The Paladin would hit Wings about 10 seconds before they popped out.

We got no real trouble there. Our pally tank is actually the worst geared in our raid and still doing a fine job. Bubble means impale's not really an issue at all which is why we're 1 tanking it.
As for the DPS out tank is doing, I have no idea what's needed here so I can't really comment.

DPS

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-On Ultraxion, DPS needs to be around 30K as an average.
-Consider a Bloodlust on 4th platform start, to burn down the tentacle faster.
-Cooldown abilities and trinkets should all be popped once Cataclysm begins to cast. Use a CD pot on the last platform.
-On Logs, check for DoT uptime. 97% or better is what you want to see from anyone who uses DoTs, so your Shadow Priests, your Warlocks, your Boomkin, your Mage.
-AoE spells don't work on the mini-tentacles that pop up during Hemorage but they do work on the bloods. Common mistake is to reverse the two.
-If you have a Boomkin, Thorns should have a near 100% uptime on a tank. Any time that Boomkin gets full Solar Power, the first thing s/he should do is Thorns on the tank.

-Ultraxion's on farm for us so that's isn't really a problem. Our dps spread is pretty huge though - 13.8/17.5k for the tanks, 24.7k for our Shaman to 36.5k for our Hunter for the DPS.
-We're bloodlusting at the start (because we can) and phase 2 atm since we have 7 DPS in our current setup and tentacles are going down fast enough.
-Can't really comment on the rest since I'm not a DPS but our Boomkin's averaging just above 80% DOT uptime for Madness by the looks of it.

Gear probably isn't an issue. Our current ilvls from the WoW site:
Tanks:
Sabreit(Druid): 391 DPS set, 394 Tank set
Syrindra(Pally): 387 Tank set
Healers:
Alarra(Priest): 394
Me(Pally): 390
DPS:
Zeb(Mage): 395
Aukryn(Hunter): 389
Choyrt(Warrior): 394
Snikkrott(Rogue): 393
Healer/DPS:
Madek(Druid): 388 DPS set, Heal set's around the same
Naymia(Shaman): 392 Heal set, don't know what the DPS set is at.

[Karoht]

WoL-Just My Opinion
Your DPS
To be objective and get an idea of what your raid DPS was capable of, I took a look at your Ultraxion kill.
Your bottom two DPS. They need to come up. Like, 5K up.

The boomkin only got 1 starfall in. Possibly a second one that got cut off during Fading Light. That's off cooldown every 90 seconds. Work it. 4-5 on that fight should be happening. Not sure if he's waiting for Eclipse or what, but it's not that big a deal to line up an Eclipse with Starfall. He also only hit starsurge 10 times. It's off CD every 15 seconds not counting procs, he should have at least double that number. His DoT uptime is only 91 percent for Moonfire/Sunfire and Insect Swarm. So far, all easy stuff to fix.

The Enhancement Shaman had poor uptime on Searing Flames and Flame Shock. Searing Flames could be due to Lava Lash, not sure if WoL takes that into account. There's Unleash Flame and Unleash Wind in there. Not sure if this person should just pick one and stick with it or what. You'd have to research that.

That is the best I can come up with for those two.
Hope that helps.

[Derjuin]

I have a pretty simple End of Cata wishlist, now that I've trimmed it up a bit.

Get a Cataclysmic Gladiator weapon. I only need 2600 more Conquest points, and I haven't queued for a rated BG or an arena at all (I have no server friends and my guild is pretty much me and some dude who never logs in; pretty much everyone's left the server because Horde side SC is crap). I will most likely wrack my brain trying to figure out which one to get, because I have this ridiculous thing that makes me like swords, maces and axes all at the same time. I don't even know if I'd transmogrify it, I like all three of their models.

I tried a few heroics and, unfortunately, remembered why I haven't done any this expansion, so those + Cata raids are off the schedule for now. I'm sure if I could afford to change my DK's faction and join the alliance guild my mage is in, I'd have better luck.

[Alarra]

As for mana issues, only time I went OOM was for Madness and that was due to alot of us not been prepared for Phase 2 on normal. Already using my mana CDs pretty much the second they come off CD and the only strain placed on our healing is when we occasionally don't spread fast enough and over half the raid gets hit by a tentacle.

I actually felt really good about how things were going our last attempt and thought we were going to make it. Mana-wise, I'd been doing alright, managing to time it so that I ran nearly out of mana every time one of my mana CDs came up for the last half or so of the encounter. I think that had I not died we might have been okay. Because I died right after I cast shadowfiend, and was of course, rez'd with little mana and couldn't get that 50k mana back the fiend should have just gotten me. We also lusted early than intended in 2nd phase and holding that until a little later might have helped as well.

I can't really comment on our dps because I don't really pay that much attention to it, but it does seem like something we should look into. Because while we 'can' arguably two heal this, maybe...we shouldn't have to.

[Karoht]

I actually felt really good about how things were going our last attempt and thought we were going to make it. Mana-wise, I'd been doing alright, managing to time it so that I ran nearly out of mana every time one of my mana CDs came up for the last half or so of the encounter. I think that had I not died we might have been okay. Because I died right after I cast shadowfiend, and was of course, rez'd with little mana and couldn't get that 50k mana back the fiend should have just gotten me. We also lusted early than intended in 2nd phase and holding that until a little later might have helped as well.

*sigh*
You sound just like I did the week Dragon Soul launched and we were working on Deathwing. I was in the same boat. It was like re-learning how to use and properly time both of my mana cooldowns, namely Innervate and Trinket. We were 3 healing it, and it just felt like I was walking on eggshells. Every bit of damage hurt my blue bar. Any time I forgot about a cooldown or even a moment or two longer than necessary I suddenly felt completely behind.

It's something you'll have to learn. It's hard, and it seems to be different for everyone.
My advice is Hymm of Hope every platform if you can. You know when you've killed the tentacle, and everyone groups up for a sec to start killing adds and Wing tentacle? That is probably going to be your best time. That, or when you first land on the platform, you've got a few seconds, more than enough for Hymm, where you don't have the tentacle smashing the raid. Do it every platform, whether you need it or not, just make sure the other healer knows what you're doing.

Soundtrack to my first Deathwing kill, in order. Totally random on my winamp. It just happened this way. Spoilered.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IBlQj2U5kU
Every time I hear this, I remember the first time I flew with Karoht. I remember the time I solo healed Karazhan back in BC when I was told that Resto Druids sucked. I remember when I learned to run before I could walk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9MTbdYvy9I
In my opinion, one of the best boss battle themes of any game. Easy to lose myself in. Healing, DPS, doesn't matter. I am in the zone. I'm even getting a little mad at the boss. He's knocking me down, I'm getting back up, wiping my brow, digging my heels in, and coming at him all over again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLJuT8zPmvA
This is it. Those final moments. I start pushing buttons faster, I can feel victory just in my reach. And I reach, just that little bit more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZKpByV5764
We land on the last platform. Tranquility is just coming off cooldown. Big damage everywhere.
"You're at your best when the going gets rough, you've been put to the test but it's never enough"
Time for me to save the day. It's all on me. Light our darkest hour! ~Tranquility~
"You got the touch! You got the power!
When all hell's breaking loose, you'll be riding the eye of the storm!"

Best of luck.

[GolemsVoice]

Get a Cataclysmic Gladiator weapon. I only need 2600 more Conquest points, and I haven't queued for a rated BG or an arena at all (I have no server friends and my guild is pretty much me and some dude who never logs in; pretty much everyone's left the server because Horde side SC is crap). I will most likely wrack my brain trying to figure out which one to get, because I have this ridiculous thing that makes me like swords, maces and axes all at the same time. I don't even know if I'd transmogrify it, I like all three of their models.

Whatever the third is, it looks positively brutal. Either get that one or the sword.

[Alarra]

My advice is Hymm of Hope every platform if you can. You know when you've killed the tentacle, and everyone groups up for a sec to start killing adds and Wing tentacle? That is probably going to be your best time. That, or when you first land on the platform, you've got a few seconds, more than enough for Hymm, where you don't have the tentacle smashing the raid. Do it every platform, whether you need it or not, just make sure the other healer knows what you're doing.

Currently I arcane torrent at some point on the first platform, hymn as soon as we hit the second platform, fiend usually on that platform as well, or possibly on the next one, as soon as I'm 40k or so down, then proceed to do all of these as well as power infusion on cooldown. And make sure I'm shielding enough to get the rapture procs every 12s. My spirit is pretty low, which may be a problem as well, though mana has never been an issue for me before, hence why I always reforge out of it.

[Leon]

Funny how somethings change after a lengthy break from the game and somethings dont.

Frost is no longer fun but Arcane is a Blast
Disc is not what it used to be and has lost its charm but Holy is exactly what i need
Arms is still my fav and now its the better choice
Hunter is still the same
Feral/balance suck but resto is still fun
Shaman of all types are still cool,
Death Knight are still boring (that kicked in and stayed in snice they got locked to a single tanking tree)
Paladins, Warlocks & Rogues... not sure hardly touched them since i came back


And after all this time Blizzard still cannot figure how to make Heirloom items actually account bound rather than server bound, yet can Transfer a Character or Change its faction (or both)...

Make it an account option, that you have to go into your page for a select a form to cut the item from one server and paste it into another - but if you can do the above then a simple set of items should not be beyond its capabilities (although this is the company that dragged its heels at adding a cosmetic system for so long - that addition is better than any other content it has put out recently)

I'm trying to to enjoy it before it is irreversibly screwed up again with the next expac - its made easier by the fact that i was given 60 days of play for free.

[GolemsVoice]

Make it an account option, that you have to go into your page for a select a form to cut the item from one server and paste it into another - but if you can do the above then a simple set of items should not be beyond its capabilities (although this is the company that dragged its heels at adding a cosmetic system for so long - that addition is better than any other content it has put out recently)

They said they're currently looking into revamping it and really maing it usable for every character.

[Skios]

So we tried our hand at HC Morchok tonight, but after an hour or so we ended up having to call it due to an unreliable instance server. We actually got him down to 30% fairly quickly, but it seemed someone was always lagging just enough to get killed. Still optimistic about it though. Our healers described it as being quite hard, but certainly not impossible. Tanking it is pretty easy though, once they're split apart far enough it basically becomes a hard five man boss. The only thing we have to pay attention to is the distance between our Morchok and the resonating crystal.

[Karoht]

@Heroic Morchok
We were 3 healing it pre-nerf. It's challenging but not impossible.
It's a fight where it is honestly worth it to say, mana shmana, time to spam baby! and top people up fast. Speed is very valuable for this fight. AoE healing is great as well, but not entirely.

@Disc VS Holy
The reason why Disc does not 'shine' in this content is the fact that previous tiers had more situations were reducing that damage and shielding were beneficial. Holy is now 'better' than it was before partly due to some adjustments. Disc wasn't nerfed at all, it just happened to be in a very good place, and much of the content was well oriented to Disc's strengths.

Holy was 'behind' because Holy is mainly an AoE healing spec, and there just wasn't enough AoE healing situations to make Holy really be high on the numbers. Firelands only had Beth, Rags, and 1 phase of Majordomo to really be considered as AoE damage situations. Rhyolith has AoE damage, but it's more spikey, which Holy has never dealt with well, where Disc absolutely shines on those sorts of fights. The rest of Firelands was basically focusing on 2 or 3 targets that needed a lot of healing, and the rest of the raid requiring very little beyond the occasional top up. Firelands was really their moment in the sun especially because their strengths as tank healers as well as their solid single target heals really came through.

As for Dragon Soul, the content really just plays better to AoE healers strengths. Sure, Disc is an AoE healer too. All the specs are, techically. But Discs strengths really don't have any seriously impressive places to shine. Heck, look at Ultraxion. Which buff do you give a Disc priest?

Atonement is awesome on certain parts of certain boss fights. Much like it was gamebreaking back during Heroic Halfus. But that's the thing about Disc these days, it's niche just got super small all of a sudden.


@Feral/balance
Suck? Huh?

@Frost VS Arcane
Wait what? How is 3 buttons 'fun' now but wasn't 'fun' before when it was the same 3 buttons?

@Arms Warrior
Inorite?
About time, they've been one of the bottom 3 DPS specs for almost the entire expansion. You know your spec has problems when you're losing to Beast Mastery.

@BoA items
The account management page seems to be the direction they are likely to go for fixing this. It's been low priority for quite a while.

[Skios]

So after our failed attempts at HC Morchok we just buckled down and cleared Dragon Soul, even clearing Madness in one shot for the first time. I got the DPS shoulders from Spine as well as the DPS ring from shared boss loot. Madness dropped the bow and Souldrinker again. I've also been stocking up on Deepholm Iolite for the +75 stamina cut. They're currently cheaper on the AH than Inferno Rubies.

[Alarra]

As for Dragon Soul, the content really just plays better to AoE healers strengths. Sure, Disc is an AoE healer too. All the specs are, techically. But Discs strengths really don't have any seriously impressive places to shine. Heck, look at Ultraxion. Which buff do you give a Disc priest?

Red. Or, at least, that's what I always take.

[Leon]

@Feral*/balance
Suck? Huh?

Tried both and neither match up to what it was like previously (mind you it had been a very long time since i played balance)

* This is Feral DPS, don't like bear tanking but respect those that manage it

@Frost VS Arcane
Wait what? How is 3 buttons 'fun' now but wasn't 'fun' before when it was the same 3 buttons?

Its not about what 3 buttons you press, its about what things do and how they do it comparatively.
The friend who gave me the game time found the same thing - Frost was no longer fun, i am aware that its the "PvP" spec but played it well enough as PvE for so long but now its heavy and slow compared to Arcane which is light and easy to play. I found mana usage to be very high on Frost which puzzled me as i remembered it always being very efficient.

Arcane used to be the mana hog but now aside from AP fueled Burn casting (or when i forget to clear the arcane blast debuff) it is very efficient.

[The Linker]

I've consistently found Kitty Spec to be complete gold since I started in Wrath. What changed, for you?

Also, my guild took down Heroic Morchok yesterday. Our first heroic boss, ever. Happy times. \o/

[Zeb The Troll]

And my raid tonight got Heroic Shannox. It's not much, but it's the first heroic boss I can think of anyone taking down since Cata launched. We wiped a lot on Beth and Rhyolith, though. I was hoping we could manage these better because I want the heroic versions on farm so that I can get my seething cinders faster. So far that's not looking good.

I think a big part of the problem with this is that I can't get 10 people who are good enough to be on a current tier raid team to stoop to Firelands.

At this point I'm severely bummed that no one in guild has yet managed to get that staff. I'm the second closest right now but the one who's closer has a very incompatible schedule (in that it's always in flux and we won't know if she can even make it until raid night).

I think I'm also resigned to the fact that I'm not going to get mine while it's still relevant. If things go like I expect, the first green staff I loot from MOP will replace it and by level 90 it will, of course, be garbage except for the transformation thing.

[Expf]

For me, after trying Subtlety for a while I found Feral to be really similar but just a lot more dull ("Not enough energy") and slower paced. Since FL I've had Balance as off-spec (sharing some gear with Resto is pretty nifty) but its damage is pretty weak this tier unless you have the legendary -- the majority of fights (except Warmaster) don't really play to the spec's strength: multidotting. I'm kinda just stuck with a subpar DPS spec as my off-spec while the rest of the DPSers who are full-time can enjoy showing off their DPS rankings every week.

On the other hand I've had some fun DPSing on my rogue. His gear isn't all that great since I've only pugged normal DS once, but it's stupidly easy to pull high numbers as Combat (most of which involves spamming the SS until your keyboard breaks). Sub is pretty fun for breaking the monotony, but it's trickier and easier to mess up.

I don't think DPS is my strength though, since I don't quite have the proper mindset for it and DPSing is more "stressful" than healing for me because I have to actually think a lot more. It's still a fun distraction when healing gets boring (and it certainly does once you do the same boss for the 50th time with 100% improved gear).

[The Linker]

The thing that made me love my Feral Druid was that it took all of my favorite parts of the Rogue trees and put them into one super-packed tree.

Another part is that I prefer the style where your damage comes from the big hits, rather than a bunch of little hits.

At least when a lot of those little hits are missing, the third thing I prefer Kitties over Rogues for. I just hate hearing 'whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh'. Cursed dual-wielding.

As you can see, though, it's all subjective stuff. Just my style.

I think a big part of the problem with this is that I can't get 10 people who are good enough to be on a current tier raid team to stoop to Firelands.

I would totally be up for this. My guild is ohmygods I keep forgetting everyone here is Horde. Darn it all.

[Karoht]

@Firelands
Cross Realm Raiding is a thing now. As soon as I'm done getting my Glory of the... achievements from FL with my guild, which should be tomorrow, I'd be up for some more Firelands action with another group of people. So yeah, maybe we should set something up for next week/end?

@Heroic DS
I don't know what we are doing wrong with H Zonozz, but he's stomping us flat. Next week we're going back to H Hagara progression.
Also, we did another part of an achievement tonight, we started on Nozdormu's platform on Madness of Deathwing.
Protip-Yellow, Red, Green, Blue. Very viable, and just keep using dream. Makes the Red and Green platforms a breeze.
Just Kalecgos left to go now.

[Skios]

We're making good progress on the Glory of the Dragon Soul Raider meta too. The only hard ones that are left are the Blackhorn and Madness ones. We'll probably do some Glory of the Firelands raider stuff too now that we have two nights a week to run on it. Finally, I'm also next in line for the mount from our weekly OS25 3D run.

[GolemsVoice]

We had a couple of good tries on Hero Zon'ozz this night. Got him down to 40%, and we now regularly survive the tentacle phases. Which is a big improvement, since our first tries went like "Ouh, wha? Where does all that damage come fromouh I'm dead."

[Leon]

For me, after trying Subtlety for a while I found Feral to be really similar but just a lot more dull ("Not enough energy") and slower paced.

That's the basics of it. The heavy reliance on bleeding things is a turn off as well - maybe its better in big fancy raids but not in Dungeons where everything dies fast.