Category Archives: Druid

There’s this patch on the PTR and it’s driving me crazy!

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As my regular readers know, I’ve went to work full time!  Yay!  However, this leaves me with lots of obligation and very little time.  Boo!  I will be taking my Guides down until I have time to update them, however, I will leave some great links up for the various healing blogs being written out there!  If you write a healing blog that you’d like shared, please let me know!

I will leave my farming/cooking guide up for now, as *most* of the info it contains is not going to be outdated when the patch drops!

While I do NOT plan to stop writing entirely at this time, my posts are going to become even less frequent as a result of little time and minimal time healing this expansion thus far.  I do plan to update my guides and have them back up once the patch hits and there are resources to link to (and I have time to actually put them together!)

My Healer Resource Guide as is:

http://healingmains.com/guides/healer-resources/

We are always looking for more resources, so if you’d like to be included, OR know a source that would be a nice addition, please let me know in the comments!

Who’s the best healer for the job?

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As someone who went from a shadow priest who’d never raided before, to co-leading a guild within the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, I’ve had my stumbling ground when it comes to deciding how to best approach the healing assignments in a fight.  And it was stumbling at first…I really didn’t know much about the other healing classes, and not only that, I was making my decisions base on the healing class, not the healer.  While healing today is much different than healing in Wrath, overall, some classes are suited to one role or the other.

Paladins are, in general, better suited to tank healing, they *can* successfully raid heal, but in general, they thrive better with tank healing.  Discipline priests are strong tank healers, but they lack the aoe of a holy priest.  Holy priests can be wonderful tank healers, so long as they aren’t also responsible for cranking out raid aoe healing at the same time…which can be said about all healing classes.  They can perform both roles, just not at the same time.  (I haven’t yet healed on my Monk, so I can’t really talk about the state of monk healing!)

More importantly though, is the play-style of the healer.  Some people are really great at tank healing (no matter their class) and others *coughs* Kurby *coughs* can’t focus on just one person and make much better raid healers.  Talking with your healing team is a good way to find out who may be suited to a particular role.  Also observation is key, if you’re trying to figure out how your team is going to work together, look at the logs and see who tends to focus and who tends to spread the love.  If your assigned tank healer spends most of their time healing the raid, and the other healers are healing the tanks, perhaps the assignments should be adjusted.  Don’t be rigid in your decisions if it isn’t working!

 

Change is a Good Thing?

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When I started this blog, I had been a healing main in the game since I re-rolled Alliance (and reached max level).  First I leveled a Priest, who after a couple of race changes went from Zorine the Draenei (while on Terokkar in the first place) to Caresse , to Caressea the Dwarf (on Blackhand).  I leveled her as holy (lol*wand*spec) and then about half way through tier 7, I swapped her to Discipline because I didn’t perform at my best as Holy.  When our resident Pally decided he’d rather tank or not raid, I pulled my alt Pally to Holy…her name was Sheralyn, but later became Sherbear after a server transfer forced me to rename her and I played a Holy Pally all through tier 10.

Towards the end of tier 10, we left behind that guild and migrated to Terokkar, my husband wanted more out of raiding than the previous guild wanted to commit to, and I had friends on Terokkar (though I’ve yet to meet any of them in real life..so far), so that’s where we headed first.  He joined the server’s top Alliance raiding guild, and I shadowed…I didn’t feel very welcome there, and thus Elunamakata was born in Brae’s guild.  While he raided, I played around on my druid, eventually getting her to level 80 about a week or two before the launch of Cataclysm.

During this time, the raiding guild that Kurby had joined, decided they weren’t raiding for Cataclysm and advised their raiders to find new homes.  After much searching on the server, we couldn’t find a raiding guild with the same mindset and time frame we preferred to raid in, so we created the Angry Gingers.  (At that time it was Cake Eaters–Mighty Duck reference ftw!).  A lot of folks from Brae’s guild (including Brae) decided to raid with us, Leaving us with either two priests and a pally or two pallys and a priest, so Eluna became my main.

Now, however, it is time to change again.  Our guild needs an off-tank, and I’ve had more people offer to heal than I have tank, so Elunamakata is becoming a…bear.

However, never fear, she’s still going to be offspec resto, and my “main alt” that I level will very much likely be my Shaman as resto.  So I will remain one of the voices behind Healing Mains!  I will (hopefully) have my two guild mates who have picked up the healing badge join us from time to time with their thoughts!  And who knows, I may not tank for long!

Guide Section Added

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We’ve added pages with links to the Mists of Pandaria Guides!

Gear Lists for Pre Raiding:
http://healingmains.com/mists-of-pandaria-gear-lists/

Guides for Healing after 5.0.4

http://healingmains.com/mists-of-pandaria-class-guides504/

Be sure to check there if you are looking for information on your healing class and/or gear going into Mists of Pandaria!  If you’ve got a gear list or guide you’d like to have featured, drop me an email at Eluna (at) healing mains (dot) com (without the spaces and with the symbols!) and I’ll get it added :-)

I do still plan on adding a guide of healer consumables and the mats needed for them in the near future!

Big thanks to the linked blogs/sites for publishing their content for us to view.  I do not own, nor claim to have contributed to any content linked.

 

Super Busy

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With my computer woes earlier this week, I’m super busy catching up on my school work and getting my kiddos ready for school next week, that means I’m delaying Guild Leader Perspective for another week (I know…LAME!).  I’m working super hard to keep everything in order here and it will become much easier once the kids start school next wednesday! (Yay!).

Kermit Flail

Kermit Flail

I have no original content today, however, what I do have will be helpful for Shaman and Druid healers!  What is it I have you say?  How about a couple blogs about Mists of Pandaria gear!

First, over on Water Bender, Mist Weaver, Elzabeth has all sorts of gear lists for Shamans, including 5-mans, reputation and raid (10 man and raid finder both!) gear!  If you’re interested in Shaman healing gear for Mists of Pandaria, I suggest you head over there and check it out!

Next over on Tree Heals Go Woosh, Tzufit has put together a post about her SUPER EASY excell spreadsheet with current Mist of Pandaria gear, including where to get it for pre raiding.  Not only is the spreadsheet super easy, it’s super awesome, because it will show your total stats for the available gear, so you can plan for what to farm (or have crafted).  I’ve downloaded it and saved it right to my desktop for easy access!

While neither list are best in slot lists, nor do they claim to be, they are an excellent starting point for the beginning of the expansion, and I’ll be using them both!

What I don’t have are Priest, Paladin or Monk lists yet, though, I would guess that monks could probably get some use from the druid spreadsheet in a pinch.  If you know of any great Holy Paladin blogs, please let me know!  Any Healing blogs that are not already on my blog roll would be a wonderful asset to my reading list!  (And I do read every blog on my blog roll, I just don’t always have time to come online and comment, I promise!)

 

Ps:  Once I get a few more links, I’ll be making a special page for Gear lists links, if you have a gear list you’d like to be included, please feel free to send me a link at eluna (at) healing mains (dot) com [without the spaces and ect]

Keybindings and Macros

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As healers, there are several ways we can get our heals from our spell books to our targets.  Many healers use a user interface to do so, in our guild we tend to use Vuhdo (which Brae will be posting about sometime this week!).  But what do you do if you can’t use an add-on?  What if you don’t like to use add-ons?  For every healer that uses an add-on, there are is another who uses key-binds and macros instead.  Used properly, these are just as effective as using a healing add-on, but take a little more effort to set up.  It’s always good to familiarize yourself in how to heal both ways, because…well addons break.

You may be asking….what’s so bad about click casting….nothing is horribly wrong with click casting.  Many people successfully click cast all day long.  However, learning to use your key-bindings will only improve your healing output and response time.  In the time that it takes you to click someone, then click the heal you want to use, you could have possibly cast two more heals.  So, while click casting works, it isn’t as efficient for most people.  Mouse-over macros, make it to where you do not need to target each person, just hover your mouse over them or their name on your raid/party frames.  Key-bindings are also to help you be more efficient.  Some healers have more spells than they do buttons on their main action bar, and lord knows I can’t reach past the 6 key easily, I have small hands!

Mouse-Over Macros

This is an example of a very basic mouse over macro:

/cast [target=mouseover] Lifebloom

If you have this on your action bar, you put your mouse icon over a persons raid frame (any raid frame works, even blizzard’s standard one) or character, it and press the key it is bound to, you will cast lifebloom on them.  No fuss no muss, very simple.  However, this also limits that spell to ONLY being a mouse over spell.  Another way of doing this, to make the spell be mouse over, target, or self depending on where your mouse icon is this:

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover,help] Lifebloom; [help] Lifebloom; Lifebloom

This will cast lifebloom on your mouse over target if you  have one and it is friendly to you.  It will cast lifebloom on a friendly target if you  have them targeted and it will cast it on yourself if no one is targeted or your target is not friendly.

I prefer the latter type of macro, because it allows more power in one macro.  For more helpful macro information, as well as for more in-dept information about what each part means, please visit http://www.worldofmatticus.com/a-guide-to-mouseover-macros/ which is where I learned to do the ones I listed :-)

 

Keybinding

Now that we know how to make macros, we have to know where to put them!  Key-binding can be kind of tricky if you use the standard wow action bars, but it is doable.  It just requires some trial and error to figure out which menu item is which action bar.  To get to the standard wow key-binding section, hit escape to bring up your menu, then click on key-binding.  You will want to make sure you are changing the key-bindings only for your current character.  You also may want to have a look at what is already bound, so that you dont’ accidentally unbind something you use often (hello M for Map!) to something else entirely.

This article from Wow Insider is a really good explanation on how to key-bind based on spell usage:  http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/02/22/blood-sport-a-guide-to-pvp-keybinding/ This will open up a ton of usable key-binds to your hand.  If, like me, you have small hands, it will still be somewhat limited.  Make sure you can comfortably reach your key-binds.  Also if you are new to key-binding it is perfectly normal to feel overwhelmed.  Start with a couple new binds at a time and incorporate more once those become comfortable to you.

I tend to use bartender for my action bar re-placer of choice, and here’s a great guide on how to use bartender to do your key-bindings.  http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/854651-GUIDE-Bartender-4-Basic-Setup

If your mouse is one of the fancy schmancy ones with more than 5 buttons, you can use its software to effectively use those extra buttons in-game:  http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/14400/use-those-extra-mouse-buttons-to-increase-efficiency/  my mouse has a little slider on bottom that allows me to turn the 1-6 buttons to num-1 through num-6 instead.  The thing you MUST remember though, is for a macro or key-bind to be legal in-game, you must be able to do it without any software options outside of wow.  Automation is a huge no-no and can and will get you banned.  Make sure you are doing things correctly.

Each gamer has to set up their spells in the most efficient way for them to play.  While I work to make sure I can functionally heal without my healing add-on, I do prefer to use Vuhdo to do this for me.  Vuhdo is simply raid frames with mouse-over macros built into them, where I click a mouse button to heal instead of a key on my keyboard.  Being able to function both ways is very valuable on patch days, beta, and even the first few weeks of an expansion when add-ons are being updated so often that yours may break several times in one day.

 

 

Improving as a Resto Druid

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I sort of struggled how to name this post, as it’s really more discussing what I’ve learned since Cataclysm launched, rather than me telling you what you should be doing as a druid.  I’m still a sapling if you put it in perspective, I created Elunamakata about a month or two before Cataclysm came out, then she became my raiding toon for guild needs, and my main out of how well it just suits me.  I’m not claiming I have it down pat or correct by any means.  However, I have noticed some things that I’ve started doing the past two tiers, that made me panic in the first tier of this expac.

Innervating Early:
I now use my innervate at around 80 percent.  This was not always the case, when I first started, I was using it when I heard the lovely “hey noooooob you need mana!” speech.  What really helped me to watch it better was to actually get an add-on to specifically remind me to use it.  I prefer to use Innervator2 , it gives me this lovely little chiming noise at around 80 percent, that will not shut up until I use my innervate.  It will then remind me when it comes off cool-down and also will chime if I’m getting below 30 percent (i think?) mana to use a mana potion if that is not on cool-down.  It’s an all around neat trick and really helpful on those progression fights.

Casting Barkskin:
It really really took me forever to remember this spell.  I knew I had it, I knew it was super awesome and I knew I should use it….but being new, I didn’t associate it with any of my previous abilities.  Since I’ve been playing a while now, I’ve made a real effort to use it when there is heavy aoe, when I pull aggro, or when I could just help out on mana to use that instead of having to heal myself.  Part of what helped me to remember it was a fight where I would pull a lot of adds from healing aggro (hello stupid trash before Ultraxion…aka “how fast can we watch eluna die!”).  Part of what made me take a while to remember it was previously, tranquility didn’t have a built-in knock-back protection, so I had it macro’ed to that spell.

Using Thorns and Mushrooms:
While thorns is not an excellent source of dps, on progression fights, every little drop of dps your raid can squeeze out really does help.  I usually cast it on the main tank, since I’m pretty sure they will be getting smacked around.  My mushrooms come out when I know there will be a need for AOE dps and I can spare the cool-downs.  (Obviously once Mists of Pandaria come out this will be outdated!).

Using Tree Form:
I used to “save” tree form and use it as an “oh crap” cool down.  Not so much now, this could be because I know the fights and know when I will need it to boost my healing on certain phases, but even when I don’t, if there’s a lull in the healing (such as when the tendon is being dps’d down and a new add isn’t back out on spine), I will pop into tree form and dps for a bit.  Or if I know there’s going to be a need for a ton of healing (thinking of the dark phases in Warlord Zon’ozz, where Tranquility will not be up every time) I know to save it so that I’m not using all my cool-downs at once.

These are just a few things that come to mind that I’ve improved upon since I first started healing way back in 5 mans and heroics at the beginning of Cataclysm.  Your mileage and guild needs may vary, but, these small things can make a huge difference in your survival rate, team work, awareness, and even your healing.  It helps to have them bound to easy to access areas.  Stay tuned next week when we discuss Vuhdo, Decursive, and how to bind more than 3 keys to your mouse.  :-)