Last night I was down at the fire station when raid invites went out. When I got home the raid was full on healers but still short a DPS Caster. I have decent +Damage Gear so I volunteered to respec for the raid. I’ve never played with a balance spec before, I raided for a while as Feral primarily in the role of Off-Tank, but this was the first time I’d ever even been in Moonkin Form.

While in Resto Spec I often find myself doing dailies in the aforementioned +Damage Gear so I had some idea of the spell rotation I was going to use in our SSC Raid. I used a basic Balance spec skipping the Nature’s Grasp talents because they have no use in a raid. After taking everything I though would help from the Balance Tree I had 15 points left over which I spent in restoration picking up more mana regen and cheaper shapeshifts.

All in all I like the role of DPS Caster. It’s a little less intense than healing because your targeting is more constant; Find the Skull, Find the X, etc. and your spell rotation more static; Find the Skull; Starfire, Starfire, Starfire, Moonfire, Insect Swarm, Starfire, St… until Skull is dead. You also don’t need as much situational awareness, am I taking damage? Yes. Do I have Aggro? No. Do I care? Not really.

DPSing is kind of Zen. It is a competition against yourself. Am I casting as frequently as I possibly can be? Am I acquiring targets as quickly as possible? You don’t really need to worry about where everyone else is, and you don’t for the most part care what they are doing. So long as you make sure to move as the boss mechanics require you to you can just run your own race.

To rank the four standard roles in WoW (Tank, Melee DPS, Ranged DPS, and Healer) in level of focus required and sense of intensity I would say:

1. Healer- Absolute situational awareness. You need to know the location of almost everyone in relationship to you and your relationship to the mobs. You have to watch not only the health of everyone in the raid but their threat gain as well. You have to be constantly make decisions about your spell casting, tailoring the spell you cast to each targets situation, and health. You should be aware of the casting of all the other healers as well so that you are not wasting casting time on a target that is about to receive a heal.
2. Tank- High Situational Awareness. You need to be aware of the aggro and threat gain of everyone in the raid not just on the current DPS target but of all targets. You have to watch for CC breaking and other adds in order to maintain control of the situation. You should be aware of your health and the mana of the healers so that you can use your cool-downs wisely.
3. Melee DPS- Moderate Situational Awareness. You mostly worry about yourself, making sure that you don’t pull aggro and being sure that your positioning is correct. Because of your short range requirement you are constantly moving making things more perilous for you.
4. Ranged DPS- Moderate Situational Awareness. Like Melee DPS you mostly worry about yourself. Unlike Melee DPS you can mostly stand in one place and cast, cast, cast. Your activity might be high but with a few macros and some key spamming you could find enough time to read blogs while you were doing it.

I’m not sure how quickly I will respec as I enjoy doing new things and if the guild needs a caster I’m there.

If you’re an experienced Boomkin do you have any advice for part time boomkin? I logged in what I have for Damage Gear if you see any quick upgrades I should grab I’d appreciate that to.

On a side note any intelligent Mages looking for a guild? Must be able to maintain a sheep for more than 20 secs (rub two braincells together).

So a few nights ago Resurrection ran around and finished up our farm content for the week. We started with Tidewalker in SSC, this was the Guild’s second time dropping the big man, but my first “successful” run.

Balyon one of the Paladins has been creating videos of our attempts so that we can continue to improve our technique and show new guild-raiders how we handle each boss. I thought you might like to see- Resurrection-vs-Tidewalker. Our Ventrillo chat is the sound track (not appropriate for work).

If you watch the video closely you’ll see that I die twice. The first time I’m not actually sure what happened, I think that there may have been one or two ticks of Lifebloom on the tank as the murlocks ran up the hallway, which must have been enough to pull them all on to me before the Paladin could pick them up.

My second death was well deserved. I went to move my Speedpad and mis-clicked hitting my Tranquility button. Since my party was all a little down on health I thought I’d let it go for a few ticks without realizing that the Murlocks were closing in on our location -OOPS- That was a KThanksBye and with no Rebirths remaining I had plenty of time to think about how I was going to remap my keys to avoid accidental casts of rarely used huge aggro generating abilities.

In a sad attempt to remain of some use to the raid I began calling out Morogrim’s health percentage in Raid Chat. It was not exactly the contribution I was hoping to make. Learn to play, Sioban. LEARN TO PLAY.

If your looking for a complete write up of our strategy please see this guide from bosskillers.com. Note that we use the second positioning strategy instead of the first.

Last night the guild was scheduled to go to Tempest Keep our target was Solarian. We all get out to Netherstorm and zone in before Heelium, our new not so new senior raider, realizes that we have no Protection Paladin to tank the adds during the boss fight. Unwilling to spend our development night on what looks to be certain a loss, we shift gears and race to Serpentshrine Cavern to try our hand at The Lurker Below. The group is Ranged DPS strong with 4 Mages and 3 Warlocks so Heelium and Myraculous, the guild leader, a both feeling confident about this attempt.

Lurker is a long fight, with two alternating phases and one nasty head-in-ass punishing ability. The combat takes place in a circular water filled cavern. The cave has a few platforms for the raid members to stand on, the water around the platforms is very hot and does 500 “Scalding” damage every few seconds so you don’t want to stay in it if you don’t have to. The first phase is the boss in a general tank and spank situation, with the added joy of Lurkers Spout ability, this is that wake up and play for real or you lose ability I mentioned before. Periodically through the phase Lurker well Spout which is like a high pressure water cannon that rotates completely around the room. If the spout hits you it blows you backwards to the edge of the circular room and does about 7k damage. In order to avoid the damage everyone jumps into the water taking the minimum damage until the spout goes past the its back out onto the platform to continue the beating.

In phase two the lurker submerges and adds spawn on the platforms that the raid is standing on. Most of the adds are non elite ranged dpsers, but three on the adds are Elite Melee Dps types that can do up to 9k damage on leather. Lurker only stays submerged for a few minutes so it is important to kill all the adds before he gets back. As soon as he surfaces he spouts and again and the fight continues like that until you wipe, or win.

On our first attempt phase one was no problem but the first time the adds spawned the elite slaughtered the Mage who was going to sheep it. Free to run around he, of proceeds to slaughter me (of course) and then several others before getting someone gets him under control. The loss of a few healers is enough to set off a chain reaction which quickly wipes the raid.

The next two attempts go similarly. Phase one and the spouting is no problem, eventually the spawns over power us and we wipe. With each wipe we get a little closer to the win. On our second to last attempt we get lurker down to around 15% (sorry I don’t remember the exact figure). Each attempt has taken about 15 minutes and we have twenty minutes left before the trash re-spawns so we quickly get back into positioned get buffed up and ready for our certain victory.

This final attempt is beautiful, we finally have the add situation under control we make it through two complete cycles with everyone still up. The length of the fight has seriously diminished our mana pool and we’re starting to show signs of weakening. The main tank falls, but is quickly replaced by the OT. We’re still rolling. By the fourth submerge lurker is down to 3%. OMG ZERG it! The tank is still up and there are maybe 9 others still remaining. Then for the first time all night the spout is what gets us…

…all but three people forget about the spout in their haste to zerg the boss that last 3%. The three fight bravely and the tank and lurker end up all alone head-to-head.

Then they both disappear. At first it appears that both have died simultaneously, but this is not the case. Lurker re-submerged and the tank is the one who died. Excitement turns to despair as we realize our defeat, then recognize that there is a minute left before the trash re-spawns and it’s too close to midnight to clear it all out and try again.

“Next Time, Gad…Lurker. Next Time”.